Thing 7A – Google Reader on Critical Thinking

This post “Critical Thinking is more important than ever amidst Internet-based denier propaganda” concerns the need for our students to understand and be able to critically think in order to eventually contribute and be citizens in this 21^st century. This post was very informative, and a little scary. It points out the fact a lot of people take things at face value, and do not question them, but accept them through ideologies, and biases. The author calls these people deniers. This is dangerous, I think because if we don’t challenge our students to learn how to learn, and become thinkers, we are gypping them, as well as ourselves. In order for our students to learn how to think, analyze and question information, we need to be practicing this. In order to be a citizen of society, I think it is important to look at more than one resource. The author noted that a lot of marketers work in doubt, and obsfucate, which means to confuse the truth. Believing this doubt is from giving in, and not looking elsewhere for information.

This is especially important with today, and how fast we can get information. As our author describes, we can see the same story ten times, but this does not mean it is true. We need to do research, and seek the truth to really understand the situation at hand. Looking at what information we are given on Wikipedia is a perfect example of this. We do not take the information as we see it, but we question it, and search for answers in reliable sources to see if it is true. Critical thinking is crucial to keep people in our society contributing, and not blindly accepting of what they see, read, and hear.