When I explore what critical thinking means to me I realize that I am very seldom a critical thinker.
One of the biggest reasons for this is that I am not a skeptic at heart. I live in a world of emotion that oftentimes dilutes my reasoning ability. That is why I am a student after a thirty-year break from school. I am getting better with age, however. Returning to college has helped me in that regard.
I know now that I need to rely on reason and require evidence more often than ever before. I always have been able to find the best explanation for the circumstances in my life, but often it stopped there. I will have to learn to dig a bit deeper and wider to find the truth. Up until very recently I functioned on a kind of knee-jerk basis, reacting to what was happening in my life at that very moment.
Perhaps one of the biggest revelations I have had about myself these past quarters in school is my need to recognize my own presumptions, prejudices, and biases towards the issues that surround my life. I have always thought of myself as a pretty open-minded individual, but in truth I am very stubborn. I am definitely a product of my past, complete with opinions about what is good and evil, wrong and right. I still think, and always will, that life comes down to the choices we make. Because others make their own choices that eventually effect us, we then continue to make new choices in our own best interests.
Speaking of best interests. I feel the discussion of politics to be a no-win utilization of time. I seldom engage, namely because there is no form government that exists on the face of this earth that is genuinely concerned for the welfare of the majority of their people. Every government is corrupt, and the fallout creates the chaos we witness today. There is no utopia. There never will be.
The media is poison, especially to the old and very young. I rarely watch TV because it is so biased. The newspaper is bought out by special interest groups, rallying to the call of freedom of speech.
My academic endeavors are necessary for my professional goal of teaching. I read a whole lot of journals on educational policies and practices. I hope to benefit from the empirical research that I digest and regurgitate in my papers. It is my hope that the analytical and critical thinking skills I learn in this class will assist me in my future endeavors towards the evalution of the education policies that are present and those that are proposed. I used to think education had nothing to do with politics. Boy, was I wrong.
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