Critical thinking and everyday life

Some people may not realize it but critical thinking is in your everyday life rather you notice it or not. Until this class room I didn’t realize how much critical thinking was used on a daily bases in your work and personal life. This past five weeks has gone by fast and in the beginning I wasn’t even sure I would go through this class because it was a huge amount of information to take in. One lesson that I have learned in the last five weeks is how to define the external and internal barriers to critical thinking. “External barriers which are called the shaping agents in Chapter one are family, friends, teachers and media.” (Ridel, 2015). Your external barriers can change how your developmental skills for critical thinking are. The internal barrier is yourself, ways to deal with your internal barrier is by rationalizing, your emotions, stubbornness, and biases.

Learning these two barriers will help my identify one of the most important things to critical thinking. The messengers these three have taught me how to distinguish “who’s telling the truth, stretching it, or downright lying.” (Ridel, 2015). Credible messengers are the ones to trust, there competence is what makes there information so credible. Character also plays a factor, they are to be principled and honest. Then there is connection a credible messenger has a connection with other people and are approachable. Quasi-credible messenger these messengers are a mixture of a credible and non-credible messengers. These messengers are known to tell credible and noncredible information. This messenger can be knowledgeable of its information but they lack the expertise. Their character is described as honest and dishonest. There connection can be approachable or non-approachable. Then the third messenger. Non-credible messenger, these messengers like to give their unsubstained opinions.

There competence is fake they give more opinions than anything and have no expertise to back up their opinions. Their character is manipulative and biased, and their connection is disconnected when dealing with other people. They basically can’t be trusted. The five-step model for problem solving “identify the problem, discover the causes of the problem, create options to solve the problem, evaluate the best options to solve the problem, and then act, monitor and modify selected options if necessary.” (Ridel, 2015) This model has helped me in the last five weeks and work and in personal life. It is self-explanatory on how to solve the problem and when using it, it also helps you understand your problem a little better. All these lesson in the Critical Thinking book by Ridel has been more than helpful. I have applied these lessons already in the last five weeks and I plan on using them throughout the remainder of my college, professional, and personal life.

References:
Ridel, R. (2015). Critical thinking in everyday life. Calm Sky Media.