Task 8

DRAFT 1

“Learning to think in critically, analytical, and evaluative ways means using mental processes such as attention, categorization, selection, and judgment”. Stella Cottrel (2005). The implementation of critical thinking skills can be meaningful for students at the school. Since students at the school have been pointed out as “receptive”, there might be complications because the truth is never absolute and knowledge is changeable, it always evolves over time. Therefore, the implementation of critical thinking skills at the high school might have a remarkable impact on students because they will be more autonomous when analyzing data, they can identify better what is reliable from what is not and become able to express themselves coherently in front of other people.

This type of improvement for education aims at educating people for the future, reinforcing people’s capacity to brain-process development, and making people aware of what is really happening in order to make accurate decisions. That is why critical pedagogy is a key factor in this process. As a matter of fact, critical pedagogy is basically a social movement that has bases on critical theories and related traditions in education and the study of culture. In this regards, the nature of culture is remarkable since it has shaped entire societies. The way people think is because of the culture they are in. Indeed, politics are done within the frame of culture, by stating what is illegal and what is not. In this sense, teachers must work as public intellectuals not avoiding critical perspectives in the classroom. Making students aware of what is actually happening outside the classroom framework. All this factor pushes education to be as they wish it to be and not as it is supposed to be, meaning inclusive, transformational, evolving, tolerant, and much more.

First, the use of critical thinking skills in the classroom helps students’ autonomy development. When students are taught how to think critically, they will have the tools to develop their autonomy since everything they read would need to be revised and corroborated. However, learning to think critically might be tedious and exhausting. Furthermore, when the readings are too long or boring, students get tired of them and prefer doing something aside. Therefore, professors must find a way to make the learning process more appealing to their pupils.

Secondly, being critical means selecting carefully what to rely on and what not to trust. Indeed, critical thinking skills enhance students’ ability to differentiate among different pieces of information in order to identify whether the source is reliable or not. Nevertheless, there are many features of critical thinking skills a student must learn in order to identify reliable information. Additionally, students must learn to differentiate among points of view, agreements, disagreements, arguments, reflections, descriptions, explanation, and many more.

Thirdly, when you are able to think in a critical way enables you to express your thoughts more fluently because your ideas are supported and well organized. Besides, the more you read factual information, the more trustworthy, undeniable, and coherent your opinion is going to be. Therefore, students at the school are going to perform better in test or presentations. Nonetheless, Thinking critically means leaving aside all your prejudices, believes, and perhaps, your feelings because they create barriers. In fact, these barriers can create a problem among students’ contexts. As a result, it is important to identify how much those barriers are blurring your thinking because the opinion or point of view given by a student might be biased and not objective.

All in all, the implementation of critical thinking skills might have a meaningful impact at high schools because it would help students to be more autonomous not only following their own instinct but proposing new methodologies to improve the teaching-learning process, not to believe every single word they read on internet or other sources since the Internet has too much false information from people who just want to fulfill their own interests, and to express themselves in a more coherent way. In fact, the more you read or watch news or newspaper magazines or other sources, the more practice you will have identifying what seems veracious for you to express later in a class discussion or in a debate.