3d ago

What's an important (in your opinion) skill too many people seem to lack?

142 comments

People have said “critical thinking”. I agree, but we can be more specific than that:
Formal logic to think clearly
Relational frame training to think fluidly
Human cognitive bias awareness and mitigation strategies to avoid magical thinking or otherwise systematic cognitive errors
Discourse Analysis to be critical of any message https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LKiaYBVAEUk&pp=
Mindfulness and acceptance skills to engage with what our thoughts and body tell us, regardless of whether it’s painful or difficult
Visible Thinking Routines to make thinking and communication with others easier
Research design (Joseph A. Maxwell) and system design (How to Design Programs) to seek information critically and how to systematically tackle challenges
- This covers so many other things.
  My usual specific go-to is how to search the internet for things. But not knowing how to search for hyper-specific things is the symptom of a lack of critical thinking skills.
  
  other things
  Interesting. So you're saying that critical thinking is not what I mentioned, but rather it is something different (an "other thing"). What would you say critical thinking is?
  
  Not at all, I'm saying that many smaller problems people often cite are simply symptoms of a lack of critical thinking.
  
  Ah. It sounds as if you’re saying that critical thinking skills are the base of many skills. That’s actually an interesting issue: could you increase skills by skill and end up with someone that is a critical thinker? Or is critical thinking something fundamental that naturally manifests in many different skills?
  
  Yeah, not revolutionary - critical thinking is a skill that's fundamental to so much else. Its like learning to read or cook. The base skill let's your learn more.
  
  Fair enough. If it is fundamental, it affects many things. How do you think it’s best taught or developed? What are the specific activities that you as a teacher or as a student would do to improve it?
  
  Not sure, other than a general combo of "question everything" and understanding the scientific method. I've never had to teach it before.

142 comments