Day 54 — Critical Thinking Skill
My learning for the day
Today I want to summarise two movies on critical thinking skills.
Movie 1 — Girl Boxer
The Plot
Girl Boxer is a six-minute documentary. In this, we meet Jesselyn Silva, known as “JessZilla,” a 10-year-old girl who loves to box. She dreams of someday winning an Olympic gold medal.
The important learning is how this short movie is used to develop Critical Thinking in a workshop.
The Learning
Source — Teaching with Girl Boxer by Michael Gonchar
Michael tells the students, “Watch this short film and think about these questions — 1. What moments in this film stood out for you? Why?, 2. Were there any surprises? Anything that challenged what you know — or thought you knew?, 3. What messages, emotions or ideas will you take away from this film? Why?”
These three great questions will be a great help to us when practising and developing our critical thinking skills
Teachers Look to Film to Foster Critical Thinking by Liana (Heitin) Loewus is one more great source about how teachers nurture critical thinking in their students.
Movie 2 — The boy who cried warming
The Plot
This feature-length documentary approaches the subject of Climate Change from a more scientific point of view than previous films on the subject.
The film evaluates many of the commonly held misconceptions associated with Global Warming
The film challenges the Carbon Trading legislation made by the best brains in the world.
The Learning
Don’t hesitate to challenge even the biggest of the big — The shepherds of global warming were usually those who cried the loudest and made the boldest predictions
Here’s some good material on the topic of fallacies — Common Fallacies and Logical Fallacies 101 that will make us better at critical thinking
My learning so far on this topic
Day 4 post — 3 Simple Habits to Improve Your Critical Thinking
Day 14 post — The Six Hats of Critical Thinking and How to Use Them
Day 24 post — The Six Types of Socratic Questions
Day 34 post — Two TED talks — Encourage critical thinking with 3 questions & This is what it’s like to go undercover in North Korea
Day 44 post — Two books — Weaponized Lies & Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking
What is Critical Thinking Skill?
Critical thinking skill is the ability to think in an organized and rational manner in order to understand connections between ideas and/or facts. While Creative Thinking is about finding new ways of solving problems, Critical Thinking is about evaluating the new ways proposed by the Creative Thinker.
How to improve this skill?
Set a goal to become a go-to person by mastering the art and science of critical thinking.
Follow the LAST model to build your personal brand as a Guru of critical thinking.
Learn — Invest time in learning different frameworks/ models/ techniques of critical thinking
Apply -
Identify a model suitable to you
Create a template to document the flow of the process
Find opportunities to use the selected method/ template
Maintain record/ process flow of every important activity you did with respect to critical thinking
Maintain notes of your thoughts/ insights/ failures/ challenges…. to be used for sharing/ training others
Share — Share the insights captured in step 2 above in a planned manner (social media posts, blogs, videos, study notes…)
Train — Generate opportunities to train your peers and team members so that, over time, your organization benefits from your efforts
Purpose of this document
I took a 66-day challenge to study Life Skills last year (10 April 2019). To my astonishment, I succeeded in studying for 66 days one skill a day.
My objectives in learning these skills were — To strengthen my mind to face life’s challenges with ease, To use these skills in my work life for better performance, To use these skills in my personal life for enriching my relationships, and To open new possibilities to surprise myself.
This is my next 66-day challenge (from 10 April 2020) — To share my Life Skills learning with my social media friends.
I pray that my toil helps you in your success journey.
What are Life Skills?
UNICEF defines Life skills as — psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They are loosely grouped into three broad categories of skills
- cognitive skills for analyzing and using information,
- personal skills for developing personal agency and managing oneself,
- interpersonal skills for communicating and interacting effectively with others.
Which LifeSkills are covered?
The World Health Organisation identified these basic areas of life skills that are relevant across cultures:
1. Decision-making
2. Problem-solving
3. Creative thinking
4. Critical thinking
5. Communication
6. Interpersonal skills
7. Self-awareness
8. Empathy
9. Coping with emotions
10. Coping with stress.
Some trivia
‘Life skills’ was never part of the school curriculum. WHO/ UNESCO mandated academia to teach these skills in all schools across the globe in 1993.
Different countries educate their children in these skills with different objectives
- Zimbabwe and Thailand — prevention of HIV/AIDS
- Mexico — prevention of adolescent pregnancy
- United Kingdom — child abuse prevention
- USA — prevention of substance abuse and violence
- South Africa and Colombia — positive socialization of children.
(Previously published on LinkedIn)