Critical Thinking - Essay Example

Critical & Creative Thinking It is amazing how some people see things from a fresh perspective. While others see ordinary things as plain, they view it as more interesting, far from being simple. They also see possibilities where others see dead-ends. They have such vivid imaginations and can come up with unexpectedly witty comments. These are the kind of people who should be placed in jobs that promote innovation. These people, endowed with special skills, are thought of as “creative”. There are likewise people who get into deep thinking considering all possibilities in analyzing various perspectives. Such critical thinkers engage in higher order thinking skills and welcome analysis, debates and a lot of brainstorming. Both creative and critical thinking skills are highly valued in whatever situation and it is important that these skills be developed from childhood. So what are creative thinking and critical thinking, and how are they related to each other? At this point, definitions are in order: The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking (1987) released the following statement: “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.” (National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, 1987 as mentioned in The Critical Thinking Community, 2009, para 3) Creativity, on the other hand, covers a wide range of definitions. According to J.P. Guilford, in its narrowest sense, creativity comprises “the abilities…characteristic of creative people…, which include such activities as inventing, designing, contriving, composing, and planning. People who exhibit these types of behavior to a marked degree are recognized as being creative.” (Guilford, 1950). Some other accepted definitions of Creativity are as follows: the ability to see things in new ways; boundary breaking and going beyond the information given; thinking unconventionally; making something unique or original; and combining unrelated things into something new (Schirrmacher, 1988). Torrance (1965), a proponent in creativity research, defines creativity as the “process of sensing problems or gaps in information, forming ideas or hypotheses and communicating the results.” Schirrmacher explains that creativity may be explained in terms of product, process, skill set of personality traits or set of environmental conditions. As a process, creativity is more inclusive, as coming up with a product is not a requirement and everyone can do creative processing that includes “thinking, speaking, playing, writing, dancing, singing, playing a musical instrument, experimenting with objects, transforming materials and manipulating ideas and objects.” (Schirrmacher, 1988). In Mac Arthur’s (n.d.)article, he mentioned Blakeslee who described the four stages of the creative process, as identified by G. Walas as early as 1945. In the first stage, Preparation, an individual gathers information and ideas until he finds a particular problem to work on. He then goes on to the second stage, the Incubation period where the unconscious process attempts to digest the problem without pressure in finding a solution. Next, Illumination may come spontaneously, sort of an “aha! moment” when intuition and insight produce possible solutions to the problem. Lastly, the verification stage tests for the effectivity of the intuitive ideas and then organized into a workable solution. Thus far, the literature has offered so much in terms of how an individual thinks. Oxman-Michelli (1991) regards creative thinking as thinking artistically and freely, being imaginative and spontaneous, original and intuitive while critical thinking is seen as logical, analytic and judgmental. As a creative thinker, one produces something new, an original creation or a novel take on an old issue. As a critical thinker, one evaluates the worth of the creative product according to explicit principles such as known aesthetic standards, rational criteria and other norms lived with at work (Oxman-Michelli, 1991) . To further illustrate with examples, students may be introduced to creative and critical thinking through various exercises introduced in class. Critical thinking is more commonly emphasized when the teacher throws back questions at the students to analyze moral dilemmas, figure out outcomes of experiments, solve math problems and even providing resolutions to certain issues that affect them in their lives. Creative thinking is mostly encouraged in tasks that require individuals or groups to come up with alternative answers to questions or “thinking out of the box”. The solution may not have been the automatic suggestions to solve a problem. A teacher can open her students’ minds to creative and critical thinking when she asks them to play certain games that make them think towards a goal. An example of a game is labeling of common objects with uncommon uses (i.e. saying that an appliance box is a giant’s finger dip dish). Another task is to complete a story chain of events as students contribute a line of their own thinking to the developing story thought of by the whole group. Playing pretend or “what if?” are also activities that broaden one’s mind to creative possibilities. Critical thinking is fostered when people dissect problems to the pros and cons of possible solutions to come up with the most effective one. Strategizing ways overcome a challenge is usually the method taken by most critical problem-solvers. Personally, I can compare creative and critical thinking as thus: creative thinking frees the mind to think of unlimited possibilities while critical thinking reminds the mind of the limits. Together, it helps to balance an individual’s higher order thinking skills. In my work as a teaching assistant, I would be able to see both in action when students come up with creative productions. When left to their own devices, the students’ imaginations reach fever pitch in surfacing various ideas they can put together for an original production. Creative thinking skills are at work when they create a storyline or think up of effects to apply to certain scenes in a play. Critical thinking skills manifest themselves when students get grounded on realistic limits such as editing out preposterous scenes that seem off to the storyline, or coming up with logical reasons to justify the plot they came up with. There is no doubt that a person endowed with creative and critical thinking skills will survive living in a highly competitive world and confidently faces and overcomes challenges thrown his way. References Guilford J P (1950) ”Creativity”, American Psychologist 5:444-54, MacArthur, J.D.(n.d.), “The Human Nature of Creativity” Retrieved on 06 June 2009 from http://www.cpsimoes.net/artigos/art_creat_hum_eng.html Oxman-Michelli, W. (1991) “Critical Thinking as Creativity”, Institute for Critical Thinking, Resource Publication, Series 4 No. 5 Schirrmacher, R. (1988) Art and creative development for young children N.Y.: Delmar Publishers, Inc. The Critical Thinking Community (2009) “Defining Critical Thinking”, Retrieved on 06 June 2009 from : http://www.criticalthinking.org/aboutCT/define_critical_thinking.cfm Torrance, E.P. (1965) Rewarding creative behavior. N.J.: Prentice Hall. Read More