Education as Critical Thinking by Amos

Education as Critical Thinking by Amos - April 2015 Scholarship Essay

Education is about a number of things, but for me, none is more important than to develop skills in critical thinking. Expressed as simply as possible, critical thinking is the ability to look at a document at evaluate its “backstory”; what are the biases of the writer? What are the biases of the environment in which the writer wrote? What are the reader's own biases?

By subjecting the subject matter to an objective review of the facts, the reader learns to not believe everything that is written (as a child tends to do) and to realize that there are very few “truths” but instead, mostly viewpoints.

The law provides a good example of this dynamic. When a person is charged with an offense in criminal law, the lawyers on each side submit evidence. Each side hopes that their evidence speaks more strongly about whether the person is innocent or guilty. What is so interesting about this is that whether someone is innocent or guilty is a conclusion which results after the evidence is weighed. This means that the evidence is not the conclusion of guilt or innocence, but is instead an argument toward guilt or innocence.

Education of this sort isn't limited only to formal education environments such as university. Such education is life long. Throughout life, people are forced to evaluate arguments to determine what “truth” they recognize as real. This “truth seeking” can apply when reading a newspaper, when the reader attempts to understand whether, for example, the journalist has a personal opinion which is coloring their writing. Or, this “truth seeking” can apply when trying to figure out how to negotiate the price of a car, by assessing how valuable an add on, like a road-side warranty, really is and how much of the argument is about profit-seeking salesmanship.

Education, then is to me, is learning to applying the “who, what, where, when, why and how” to whatever question is at hand. A good teaching environment will teach a person how to look at an issue critically so as to arrive at as objective an answer as is possible.