{"id":10175,"date":"2014-05-20T05:00:54","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T09:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/?p=10175"},"modified":"2014-05-20T10:31:11","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T14:31:11","slug":"critical-thinking-%e2%89%a0-being-a-contrarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/10175","title":{"rendered":"Critical Thinking \u2260 Being a Contrarian"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Criticize\"<\/p>\n

Our best college students are very good at being critical. In fact being\u00a0smart, for many, means being<\/em> critical. Having strong critical skills shows\u00a0that you will not be easily fooled. It is a sign of sophistication …<\/p>\n

The combination of resistance to influence and deflection of responsibility by confessing to one\u2019s advantages is a sure sign of one\u2019s ability to negotiate the politics of learning on campus. But this ability will not take you very far beyond the university. Taking things apart, or taking people down, can provide the satisfactions of cynicism. But this is thin gruel.<\/p>\n

The skill at unmasking error, or simple intellectual one-upmanship, is not totally without value, but we should be wary of creating a class of self-satisfied debunkers …\u00a0In overdeveloping the capacity to show how texts, institutions or people fail to accomplish what they set out to do, we may be depriving students of the chance to learn as much as possible from what they study.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From an excellent\u00a0post<\/a> on\u00a0the New York Times<\/em>‘ The Stone\u00a0blog by Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University, titled “Young Minds in Critical Condition.” After almost 15 years teaching in North American universities, I can only agree.<\/p>\n

It unfortunately goes well beyond the university, however. One need only read the comments sections\u00a0of\u00a0most news websites, Yelp reviews, or Reddit threads to realize that increasingly, people’s default position is to\u00a0want to question everything.<\/p>\n

Now,\u00a0don’t get me wrong. Questioning the why and the how of things is a useful skill, especially if one is able to change one’s mind on the basis of that questioning. Sadly, most of\u00a0those daily so-called displays of critical thinking are nothing more than people being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.<\/p>\n

It is as though people are so afraid of being labeled “not smart”\u00a0that they feel compelled to find the flaws in all the statements they are presented with. But part of being smart is\u00a0knowing how to pick your battles and learning when not to unnecessarily antagonize others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our best college students are very good at being critical. In fact being\u00a0smart, for many, means being critical. Having strong critical skills shows\u00a0that you will<\/p>\n

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