The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi
THE above question does not call for a philosopher or robotic scientist to answer. It is a simple question which can be answered in the following simple way:
Critical thinking refers to a mental process which leads to an understanding or comprehension facilitated by special thought processes of analysis. If this is not simple enough for some of you, please try the second attempt at defining critical thinking: It refers to the mental ability to arrive at a deep understanding of an issue or issues through structured stages of analysis or unlocking of meaning.
Please note that one of the loudest talked about features of the New Curriculum, perhaps an important chip of the NC, its backbone if you like, is its aim to make schools offer an education that develops critical thinking as a life skill.
Here are some examples of the stages or mental processes that define critical thinking: reading between the lines.
This refers to the ability to code meaning from missing words or lines. Often times people speak more clearly from what they do not say than what they say. When a woman introduces her husband to a friend as “Tsitsi’s father”, is she saying the same thing as “This is my husband, Mr Chakutichakuti?” If you cannot pick up the difference in meaning between these two different ways of expression, then you have not learnt or mastered the reading-between the-lines skill. It is also called the Inferential Skill.
It is used to infer meaning. If you cannot read between lines in life, infer meanings, you are mentally disabled, of course in the context of verbal intelligence.
If your spouse every day uses the word ‘Honey,’ ‘Darling’ or ‘Sweetheart’ to address you in conversation, live or through the phone etc, and then suddenly chooses to address you as Mr Nhingi (your first name or surname) you should know it is a message of a sudden change of feeling and attitude. Whatever causes or caused it is another damn matter.
The issue is you can, must sense and understand a sudden change of tone and mood created by this purposeful choice of a different wording in addressing you.
That is called reading between the lines. (Inferring). It is a powerful tool of critical thinking. I know what you mean even if you have not said anything. And please note, not saying something where it is obvious you must say something is very loud communication.
Silence is a very powerful language if you are a critical thinker. It can save terrible wars and is able to avoid worst-case animosities, but can also spark foolish confrontations and conflicts.
It depends who is the critical thinker and who is the emotional reactionary. The point is, silence is a powerful language…for better or for worse. Silence may be considered safe and sensible by other schools of thought. It doesn’t work or solve anything. Why? Because silence is quiet speech. It is a form of communication. And if the silence is not translated to words it can be interpreted wrongly and cause more harm than good.
Certain choices of words and expressions communicate worlds of different attitudes and feelings used in different contexts and situations. A clever listener or reader, a critical thinker, must code the right meaning and be able to say whether words or expressions have been used denotatively (in their simple straightforward or everyday meaning or connotatively (to mean something different from the norm).
Some speakers or writers craftily use these subtle choices of words, expressions, even questions, to deliberately or unwittingly create certain tones. The tones created thereofare as vastly different or variable as the number of people using them.
Tones convey particular emotions, underlying feelings and attitude of the speaker or writer. The tone may be described as friendly, sharp, sarcastic, ironic (meaning the opposite), angry, humorous or condescending (agreeing out of politeness, not sincerity.) And every smart speaker or writer is using these words to deliberately create intended tones which in turn create purposefully intended moods or atmospheres in the listener or reader.
The not-so-smart use them ignorantly and unaware of what they mean even if they know what they are saying.
That disease is called naivety; a beautiful word which means a state of mind which one cannot be proud about.
In real life situations, not case studies as we find them in our Literature set books (novels, plays etc); real life situations like love relationships and marriages, levels of critical thinking (ability or inability to code these meanings) can make love-birds or spouses blossom in fertile and enriching relationships or suffer mentally in miserable misunderstandings of each other.
The problem is not always with the listener or reader whose critical thinking is very low.
It can easily be the problem of the speaker or writer too who says anything using any words that come to the mouth without critically thinking how they may contain damaging connotations to the listener.
Many employers of maids and general hands in their households take wrong advantage of their positions to daily harass or hurt their maids by using words without thinking how they may affect the worker(s) when they land.
Many managers and manageresses in workplaces torture their subordinates with words unthoughtfully selected and used. Critical thinking is important for both the speaker / writer and listener/ reader.
We cannot overemphasize the damage this can have on careless lovers who talk too much and tend to think not as much every time they open their mouth.
When ordinary social commentators every day emphasize how critically important communication is in a marriage or love-bird relationship, they always fail to show how it is not that couples are not talking that is the problem, but serious lack of critical thinking which in healthy communication supplies the correct choices of words that the partner will not misinterpret or understand with a different emotion, underlying feeling and attitude.
The attitude quotient, it is interesting to note, may be a serious challenge for both the speaker and listener.
When these armchair marriage counsellors and experts cite communication as a challenge in many marriages they all seem to suggest spouses or lovers don’t talk.
They do talk. But talking is not communication, is it? Communication involves critical thinking. When you are saying something to someone don’t always assume people you are talking to are fools.
Nine times out of ten they understand why you are choosing certain words and expressions and not others.
They know and understand even what you are not saying. They can even understand your body language better than you.
Never underestimate the intelligence of listeners to what you say and readers of what you say wherever you are, at a prayer meeting, church, school-assembly point, around a breakfast table, on radio or television, out on a date, on a love couch, in your bedroom…wherever. People are critical thinkers and you may be the foolish or uncritical speaker.
It is through what we say and how we say it that makes who we are more than what we do.
Our personalities and characters are built around our language, after our dress code of course. People, critical thinkers, know us for our emotions, underlying feelings and attitudes dictated by our choice of words and expressions.
Communication successes or breakdowns nourish or destroy relationships of whatever nature. And the breaking point is not in the absence of such communication but lack of critical thinking. Words are not just words.
They convey character, emotion, feelings and attitude. Say things without critical thinking or hear without the same and you are in a war of understanding. Wars, Peace or Love are made by words.
The absence of critical thinking in marriages, relationships too, intended for marriage or not, are often marred by poverty of critical thinking. Someone once said serious thinkers don’t often make the best spouses. I am not surprised.
There are people who believe we use our money and bodies to love and not our brains; our critical thinking? Nonsense, isn’t it? When people go to school, we expect them to become thinkers, critical thinkers, not just empowered or beautiful actors and actresses; speakers throwing words at each other without considering their impact on readers or listeners.
Poor or mischievous communicators use emotive language where they want to communicate intelligently and vice-versa. Emotive language appeals to emotions rather than intellect.
It is important to know if your language is subjective or objective.
Subjectivity is personal and biased. It is a one-sided point of view.
Critical thinkers know when a speaker is unwittingly being emotive or is deliberately being both emotive and intelligent.
Many speakers have no idea what language means denotatively or connotatively and they offend people because they are not critical thinkers or speakers themselves. Good speakers use their mouths to speak. Critical thinkers use their brains to speak.
It is a blessing in disguise that the New Curriculum, among other things, emphasizes critical thinking.
What better way can there be to develop this life skill than through Literature?
If you are not offering Literature and you are side-lining it or pushing it to the back burner, you are an active enemy of the New Curriculum.
For only in Literature are we free to teach and learn sterling critical thinking.
Next week, don’t miss an enlightenment on Emotive Language and Critical Thinking.
Watch the space! Meanwhile make an effort to understand what critical thinking is and how it can improve our understanding of one another and love for each other and how it can enhance our appreciation of the world around us.
