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Should freshman composition be a required course for all students?

Should athletes be tested for anabolic steroid use?

Should creationism be taught in high school biology classes?

Should polygamy be legalized?

Should the voting age be lowered to sixteen?

Group discussion exercise: Discuss each of the following questions with two or three classmates, applying the four guidelines for developing individuality that are given in this chapter. Be prepared to share your group's ideas with the class.

Should extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan be allowed to hold rallies on public property?

Should the prison system give greater emphasis to the punishment or to the rehabilitation of inmates?

Should doctors and clinics be required to notify parents of minors when they prescribe birth control devices for the minors?

1 Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics (New York: Pocket Books, 1969), pp. 49-53

2 Thomas A. Harris, I'm OK – You're OK: A Practical Guide to Transactional Analysis (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), pp. 37-53

P1-C01-5

CHAPTER TWO

WHAT IS CRITICAL THINKING?

When Arthur was in the first grade, the teacher directed the class to "think." "Now, class," she said, "I know this problem is a little harder than the ones we've been doing, but I'm going to give you a few extra minutes to think about it. Now start thinking."

It was not the first time Arthur had heard the word used. He'd heard it many times at home but never quite this way. The teacher seemed to be asking for some special activity, something he should know how to start and stop. Like his father's car. "Vroom-m-m," he muttered half aloud. Because of his confusion, he was unaware he was making the noise. "Arthur, please stop making noises and start thinking."

Embarrassed and not knowing quite what to do, he looked down at his desk. Then out of the corner of his eye he noticed that the little girl next to him was staring at the ceiling. "Maybe that's the way you start thinking," he guessed. He decided the others had probably learned how to do it last year, that time he was home with the measles. So he stared at the ceiling.

As he progressed through grade school and high school, he heard that same direction hundreds of times. "No, that's not the answer, you're not thinking – now think!" And occasionally, form a particularly self-pitying teacher given to talking to himself aloud: "What did I do to deserve this? Don't they teach them anything in the grades anymore? Don't you people care about ideas? Think, dammit, THINK."

So Arthur learned to feel somewhat guilty about the whole matter. Obviously this thinking was an important activity that he'd failed to learn. Maybe he lacked the brain power. But he was resourceful enough. He watched the other students and did what they did. Whenever a teacher started in about thinking, the screwed up his face, furrowed his brow, stretched his head, stroked his chin, stared off into space or up at the ceiling, and repeated silently to himself, "Let's see now, I've got to think about that, think, think (I hope he doesn't call on me), think." Though Arthur didn't know it, that's just what the other students were saying to themselves.

Because Arthur's situation is not all that uncommon, your experience may have been similar. That is, probably many people have gold you to think, but no one ever explained what thinking is, how many kinds of thinking there are, and what qualities a good thinker has that a poor thinker lacks.

Thinking is a general term covering numerous activities from day-dreaming to reflection and analysis. Here are just some of the verbs Roget's Thesaurus includes for the word think:

appreciate

believe

cerebrate

cogitate

conceive

consider

consult

contemplate

deliberate

digest

discuss

dream

fancy

imagine

meditate

muse

ponder

realize

reason

reflect

ruminate

speculate

suppose

weigh

However, all of those are just he names that thinking goes under. They really don't explain it. The fact is after thousands of years of humans' experiencing