Athea Koester Argumentative Essay Final Draft

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May 14, 2024

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1 The importance of critical thinking for education, autonomy, and decision-making Athea Koester San Jose State University ENGL 1B Section 82: Argument and Analysis Dr. Zehlia Babaci-Wilhite May 10, 2024

2 Critical thinking is a topic that requires much thought to describe in the first place. It is defined by the Miriam-Webster dictionary as, “The act or practice of thinking critically (as by applying reason and questioning assumptions) in order to solve problems, evaluate information, discern biases, etc.” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Critical thinking is a widely discussed topic, which begs the question, why should people aim to be critical thinkers? Why is critical thinking important? One way to answer this question is that critical thinking is important for ensuring oneself is fully educated and able to make personal and large-scale decisions. Critical thinking is often discussed alongside education and is often described as a goal for education. Many educators hold the belief that educational systems should aim to teach students to be critical thinkers. But critical thinking itself is an essential factor in educating oneself and becoming a good learner. Definitions of critical thinking vary, and one widely accepted definition is that critical thinking is “careful goal-directed thinking,” and this means that “conceptions of it can vary according to its presumed scope, its presumed goal, one’s criteria and threshold for being careful, and the thinking component on which one focuses” (Hitchcock, 2022). With this in mind, if one was to have the goal to educate themselves on a topic and learn about it to the best of their ability, they would easily be able to apply critical thinking to their learning process. This extra thought and care into the act of learning would undoubtedly help in one’s education. Author David A. Turner discusses this idea in chapter 7 of Learning Critical Thinking Skills Beyond the 21st Century For Multidisciplinary Courses . Turner connects the idea of critical thinking to the idea of a growth mindset, which he does by describing the idea that you can become a better learner if you practice and develop your learning skills (Turner, 2020). From this, it can be seen that critical thinking and education feed into one another. As one learns critical thinking practices and applies them, they learn to be better critical thinkers, which helps

3 them learn more. This cycle is essential for practicing critical thinking in other domains, and in being educated enough to apply critical thinking most effectively. One domain of life that critical thinking can aid in is in decision-making and autonomy. In the case of decision making, the goal of critical thinking is to evaluate a situation in order to come up with the decision that will bring about the best outcome. Turner brings up the idea of Buridan’s donkey: a donkey that stands between two piles of green grass, but can’t decide which to eat first, so it starves. Critical thinking helps differentiate humans from animals such as Buridan’s donkey. By applying critical thinking, humans are able to evaluate situations, saving ourselves from the starvation of indecision (Turner, 2020). But that doesn’t mean that critical thinking comes easily to humans. Turner then goes on to describe some critical thinking practices that one can use in their life. Most people do not use these kinds of thinking methods in their everyday lives, and this is largely because they never learn how to do so. Constance Kamii, author of the paper Toward autonomy: The importance of critical thinking and choice making, discusses the importance of critical thinking in education with the goal of teaching children to be autonomous. Kamii argues that, “Children can learn to make choices only by making their own decisions and evaluating the results of their decisions. We cannot expect children to accept ready-made values and truths all the way through school, and then suddenly make choices in adulthood” (Kamii, 1991). Kamii’s main point here is that students must learn how to apply critical thinking through first-hand experience and practice, and that most schools do not allow students to become critical thinkers. This is because many schools focus on students memorizing information, rather than getting good practice with logic and reasoning techniques. This idea of practicing critical thinking aligns with Turners thoughts that critical thinking must be practiced intentionally in order to increase autonomy and aid in decision making. As mentioned earlier,

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