9A: Critically Thinking

            Now say you decided to ask your nearest college professor or class braniac what exactly they thought “critical thinking” was.. you’d probably get an answer like “Critical thinking is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, partially true, or false. Critical thinking is a process that leads to skills that can be learned, mastered and used. Critical thinking is a tool by which one can come about reasoned conclusions based on a reasoned process.” Sounds fancy right?

            But critical thinking is something that is used to be able to really analyze and observe things that are around you, the process of observation. We think critically when we are trying to really go about digging deeper and finding the true meaning of something. College is all about critical thinking, especially in our inquiry class. Inquiry teaches us ways to observe everything that goes on in our everyday college lives to make our time in the university far more easy.

            The process of critical thinking really taps into everyone’s sense of “common sense.” Seems simple right? But so many people lack the thing called common sense. Common sense is basically just pointing out the obvious, being able to put a finger or some sense of idea on the obvious occurrences that take place every day in your life.

            Common sense allows you to quickly analyze basic things enabling you to make th right decisions upon completion of something. Almost like critical thinking, critical thinking enables you to break down and analyze something, therefore letting you find the proper things out about something, which then allows you to make the right decisions about something or formulate the proper conclusion. Albert Einstein once said “Critical Thinking is 'rational optimization' of 'rational' aspects. It provides a 'rational' optimum, for instance not considering most emotional aspects. And often ignoring most cultural differences.”