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Using Critical Thinking Skills Creatively Essay

Critical thinking is unfortunately not a path that all students use to become enlightened as to proper behavior outside the classroom, and in this paper I will provide examples of poor judgment by students based on the lack of critical thinking. Basically, critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process in which a person carefully and with skill (based on practice) goes through a process of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation to determine upon deep reflection what is the best thing to do or best plan of action. Critical thinking is not a matter of manipulating ideas to suit a person's pre-designed plans and schemes. It involves taking information, processing that information, having the ability to objectively review in one's mind what the consequences of any action will be. A Critical Thinking Issue

For myself, I have given a great deal of thinking -- critically evaluating as fairly as I can do -- about the behavior of some fellow college and university students. On a recent weekend, hundreds of university students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in California gathered at a property rented by students. They were alerted to the fact that there was a party through social media. The alcohol being consumed (and no doubt some drugs were involved) was no doubt the driver as about 50 students got up...

Unfortunately the roof collapsed and eight students were injured. Several students were arrested for public drunkenness; others were arrested for urinating on neighbors' property.
The point here is this: how many of these students did some critical thinking about what might take place at a spontaneously arranged keg party in a college housing neighborhood? It is possible that some actually did some serious thinking and decided to go ahead and attend the party. And how many of the students at the University of Oklahoma who were caught on video singing a racist song did some critical thinking before deciding to join in with a song that is deeply offensive to African-Americans? It's quite clear that alcohol was involved in that rant by fraternity students, but that is absolutely no excuse.

Meanwhile, I am a 20-year-old Chinese-Indonesian student from Jakarta, in my sophomore year at Dean College. I have assimilated into the college culture here in Massachusetts and I appreciate this opportunity to gain academically and to experience friendships with students from many cultures and ethnicities.

I was asked in a communication class to relate to the problem of alcohol abuse on campuses, and I did critically review what I was going to say before I recited my…

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It makes me do some critical thinking today how many Jews actually had the time and the presence of mind to think critically about how to escape. There is no accurate number of course, but upon critically evaluating what my options might have been, I know if I had been a rabbi in the Jewish faith I would have been following the news beginning in 1938 when Hitler annexed Austria. The writing was on the wall at that time for alert Jews who could see some very dark days coming in Europe. I would have put my critical thinking skills to good use and seen that Hitler intended to continue gobbling up countries in Europe and killing Jews in the process.

Research shows me that many rabbis and other Jews escaped to the United States during the years in which Hitler's march across Europe was continuing. Imagine a young rabbi who has recently been made pastor of a synagogue in France. He clearly is following the news and because he is a critical thinker, he is not only thinking about escaping with his family, but how he will do that, where he will go, what means of transportation is available to him and how his wife and family are thinking and feeling about this process.

Thinking critically about how Nazi Germany came to be such a brutal killing machine, gives a student a perspective not only of history, but of what behaviors are appropriate in order to create a civil society. Reflecting on the 50 drunken students who caused a roof to collapse is not to be compared with the Nazis, but it is definitely not appropriate student behavior.
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