We have to make new choices and make new decisions throughout our lives. "I wonder whether I should believe him or not?"
"Should I buy this or not?"
"Should I choose this or that?"
"I wonder if this is a good solution?"
"Is this information he told me true?"
Being able to make the best decisions and the most beneficial choices depends on being able to access valid and reliable information that will guide our thoughts and actions and analyzing this information to make a choice. Being able to go beyond the given information and consider alternatives, including the given, is perhaps one of the most important skills of the new century. Making the most useful and correct choice in the abundance of information, experience and objects... We are talking about a very basic life skill that we must acquire for both ourselves and our children.
Ellen Galinsky, in her book "Developing Mind", defines this skill as critical thinking skill and states that critical thinking skill is one of the seven basic life skills that every child should acquire throughout their development. If we want your children to be individuals who make good choices and make the right decisions for themselves and their environment at school, at work and in life, we must encourage them to "think critically". Like other skills, critical thinking skills follow a developmental path from childhood to adulthood. But how can we do this?
"Critical thinking is the ability to step back, look at what you are doing, look at the size of the work and evaluate it."
-Frank Keil, Yale University
We've previously talked about basic skills like focus, self-control, perspective taking, and making connections. Critical thinking skill is a more complex executive function skill that includes all these skills. In order to think critically, you need to be able to focus on the information, make connections between the data you have, and evaluate the information you have by providing self-control in order to go beyond what is given. So you need to make sure you're supporting other skills as well.
Children's minds gather information from the world and make sense of it. We know that he works just like a scientist while studying. They constantly classify, categorize and establish relationships between the information and experiences they are exposed to and witness. Just like a scientist, they create a theory in their minds about what is happening based on the cause and effect relationship. They test these assumptions and theories when they encounter similar and identical situations again. If it does not fit their assumptions or the logical explanation they have in mind, they develop a new theory. It may surprise many of us to see how scientific methods are used so frequently when describing a child's thought processes. But don't be surprised! Because we are all like amateur scientists in the face of our own experiences in life. We collect information about what is happening, compile the information we collect, and try to create a coherent explanation from these compilations that we find valid and reliable. Otherwise, our spiritual health and mental health would deteriorate because we could not develop a reliable and consistent perception of the world. Going back to children's thinking processes, children learn knowledge from other people and their own experiences. At this point, it would be useful to explain a little more about how they learn from others and their own experiences, which is very critical for critical thinking skills.
Suppose you are watching an advertisement. Do you blindly believe what the ad says, or do you take a step back and question the credibility and validity of the ad? If you are an individual who has control over his own life and does not live randomly with what is presented to him, you will probably have question marks about the validity and reliability of the advertisement and be skeptical. The ad tells you that a brand of toothpaste has a texture recommendation from every ten gum experts. What do you do? As someone with gum sensitivity, would you try to buy right away? Or would you make your decision after a process of questioning and research, taking into account who these ten people are, the commercial concerns of the brand, etc.?
The skill we need to instill in our children is exactly this critical thinking skill that takes a step back and considers various possibilities.
Experience Reasoning about what you know, questioning the reliability of the source of information, reaching someone who is wiser than you in the information you want to reach, and questioning the reliability of the person who offers the information while obtaining this information are very vital skills. If the way we have explained so far reminds you of a Sherlock Holmes story, do not be afraid, the process is not actually that complicated. I recommend you to remember that every information learned during the development process becomes automatic and operates in a very implicit way in our daily lives. So what you need to do is “How Can We Help Children Develop Critical Thinking Skills?” Implementing the suggestions listed in the article titled and observing how your child benefits from this approach throughout his development.
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