A strong feeling that should come to the people of the future is that one should be able to liberate one’s mind from oneself. ‘I am the director so I know what I am doing. My job is to direct others. And what’s others’ job? To listen to what I direct and follow what I say. So what happens? They will listen to me, take my orders. I may give some freedom to think perhaps. And ask them to do a job exactly the way I want it.’ Is this not happening in our communities?
If you go to any office, you will see people waiting for orders, right from the security personnel to the deputy CEO. The attitude is ‘what the CEO says I will do’. Why should it be done that way? Why can’t people do it themselves? Can’t they think for themselves and understand what the CEO says. Can’t they transfer those thoughts into mind and innovate based on their own thoughts. Can’t they go back to the CEO and say, ‘I have a better idea, would you listen to me?’ When an employee does it in his own way he/she gains happiness, he/she has the ownership of the idea and the company would appreciate what he/she is doing.
The CEO thinks that he/she has a good employee who is able to tell him/her a better way of doing things because he/she has the experience from the field on how it can be done. But why is this not happening in society? Why do people look at the senior guy to tell him what to do? Many times they may think this is not my job. They may think ‘why should I take a risk and complication in life’ And many also think, ‘I don’t get any appreciation, why should I do it?’ I know how to do it better than what this guy says but I will not. I will rather go by his words, the ownership is for him, the problem is for him. And it doesn’t affect me.’
This happens in a big way in my own company. There are people sitting in the marketing and admissions department. I have to give out 100 directions. Be watchful and careful of all enquiries, follow up the enquiries, follow up with the existing parents, and follow up with fee collection. Whatever I do, new admissions will not grow the way I want it to. New inquires will not build up the way I want. The fee collection will not happen the way I want.
Where lies the problem? Isn’t our education good? It is beyond good for the price paid for it. We have very creative education, well-trained teachers, compliant with curriculum and culture. Even though every ingredient is available why can’t it be sold? I have told my sales staff to sell. Then why can’t it be sold? Why are parents are not paying up? Are they ignorant parentsOr is it the person sitting on the seat who can’t deliver?
I can’t deliver, as I am far away serving the community. So, I call the concerned person and ask him/her what has happened.
‘Are you following up all enquiries?’
‘Yes sir. I am following all enquiries.’
‘And what is the response?’
‘They say they will come later sit.’
Then a few weeks later, I ask, “Why haven’t they come?’
‘Sir some other school called them sir.’
‘Why did they go there?’
‘They gave a discount sir.
So, there are hundreds of defensive arguments. They did everything you wanted. They sent telex, communication, email, Facebook. They linked this, and they linked that. They sent WhatsApp, they sent YouTube. I don’t know what they haven’t done. But nothing happened. Why didn’t the communication have an impact? The answer goes back to the classroom. What happened in the classroom when the teacher was teaching? We call it in our educational language as critical thinking.
What is critical thinking? Is there something new to be taught? Or is there something to be modified to one’s own thoughts? If the teacher was very much aware that in future this child should be able to think for himself, modify his thinking, understand the risk of his thinking, have the ability to take those risks, have the ability to communicate to the other people, evolve, come together, do it and enjoy it. That is critical thinking.
Critical thinking is not asking a child to think beyond what that particular subject allows. Critical thinking abilities are to adopt the thoughts to one’s own mind. There is a thought process for subject learning. To what extent you modified those thoughts and adopted those thoughts into your life. You can connect your life to those thoughts. And you can own those thoughts. You can work with those thoughts; you can change your mental thinking based on those inputs. That is called critical thinking ability. This has to start from the classroom.
Teachers argue that they have a huge curriculum to cover. They are worried of completing the curriculum. As they know that critical thinking has to be done they remark, ‘Okay I will spend five minutes every day for critical thinking’. But critical thinking does not happen
Neither does the teacher thinks critically, nor the child. Critical thinking is something like a puja that happens in a temple because nobody understands how to do it.
Curriculum is never a load, teaching is never a load. The teacher has made it a load because the teacher thinks that it is his/her job to teach all that’s in the curriculum. If you cook food, the child will eat it. You don’t have to feed the child. Cook the food, create the environment, if the child has language skills he/she will learn a lot of the curriculum by himself/herself or will learn in a collaborated way. The teacher can take a lot of time to develop thinking around each child and make the child work himself/herself. And wherever the child has a problem he/she needs to go and help the child in a certain way.
The present way of entering into a classroom, lecturing, teaching on a blackboard with a chalk piece, drawing, writing, showing movies, this and that and running across the entire pages of a textbook to learn a curriculum is a huge mistake happening in the classroom. If a child has to eat food, the parent doesn’t have to feed him/her. Just cook it the way the child likes and he/she will eat it. Similarly, when children read a lot and thinks a lot, they will own those thoughts.
At that point of time, each child develops his own critical thinking. And when that happens, children will know how to work on their own. And later in life, they will learn how to run a home, how to work with family, how to treat their life partner, how to manage children, and how to manage relatives. They will also learn how to work in an office where the only thing that supports one in every place is one’s own critical thinking. That’s what every classroom has to do.
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You have wonderfully described about critical thinking. This is an awesome message. As you have already discussed, people fear to open up and if anyone opens up any other ideas or ways, it usually becomes disobedience or as lack of interpersonal skills to cooperate with team. This is why taking risk, thinking differently and presenting those creates bad image. As you told, culture of welcoming different ideas or perspectives should be encouraged no matter, if it's right or wrong. Atleast a chance should be provided. Identification of mistakes leads one to rectification of those, which in turn leads us to identify better ways to achieve those, making progress and thereby gaining confidence to think differently which can open up critical thinking. At the same time, it's also not necessary that we need to find different ways to reach certain task goals. There would be more factors which should also be considered like time, nature of task, urgency in completion, purpose, experience, skills and more importantly team we work with and freedom of voice.
When we think about students critical thinking, the habit should be started right from primary classes. It is really difficult to suddenly convert students habit of critical thinking when they reach secondary, if they do not have exposed themselves to take risk and critical thinking right from primary standards. Critical thinking of a student should rightly start from childhood. Most of the students like to get spoon fed when they reach secondary and not less, even when they get on to their UG or PG level, I have seen students who is so used to get spoon fed. According to me research skill will really help critical thinking.
I feel there is much more to discuss, as this topic is really awesome to discuss. Thanks for this article ?.