What are the consequences of NOT thinking critically? Do you believe critical thinking skills can be taught?

Answer 1

Thank you for posting this question.

I strongly feel that critical thinking can and should be taught in the school system. And I'm willing to devote time and money to make sure it happens. The most difficult task is to convince people that critical thinking is important, and should be taught.

Thinking critically increases our ability to make good decisions. Good decisions can improve the society and improve everyone's quality of life. It is of the utmost importance to teach these skills in public school.

It is my opinion that we are not adequately teaching critical thinking in our public school system. There are main two causes. We do not value critical thinking in our society, and we do not have enough teachers that can teach a critical thinking course. I believe that the value of critical thinking is starting to be realized, which will eventually lead to more teachers able to teach critical thinking skills. I want to be a part of this movement and be a part in accelerating it.

Many people make the argument that we shouldn’t have designated courses to teach critical thinking because they feel that it should be taught in every course. I realize the importance of distributed education, but I feel that it is so important that it should also have its own course. I believe that we should start at least by junior high school, although more analysis should be performed regarding when the best time would be to start.

If you are an educator, or decision maker, please inform me so I can contact you and supply additional information.

Answer 2

I gotta tell ya, people who think critically have better lives! They are more in control of their lives, their choices have more value, they are more often healthy and wealthy and happy.

There are people convinced that they, over all the other folks, have some mystical advantage to winning the lottery. Even at $10 a week, that adds up to $1000 over 20 years.

There are people that get mistreated by their mate, who then apologizes, then a few days later, mistreats again. They refuse to believe that their abusive mate is a negative influence on their life.

There are people who believe the "speech of the week" and ignore all evidence to the contrary. This, in part, is how the USA went from a country with very little taxation, to one where the average citizen pays over half their income straight to their Federal, State, and Local governments.

Can critical thinking skills be taught? Sure! But it involves people giving up emotion, which is increasingly important in today's life. In order to really learn critical thinking, you need to reduce the importance of emotion, as often the best answer according to the evidence is not the one that feels the best to execute.

Answer 3

If you want to see the consequences of not thinking critically, just read some of the questions people post on this site.

Answer 4

The biggest consequence is that you take things on faith, such as religion for example. What results is a distorted worldview

Answer 5

Sooner or later you're gonna get shafted or killed. It can be taught to some extent but generally, you have to develop it on your own thru hard experience.