Introduction:
As an educator, I believe my role is to develop skills as important as the ones we use to read, write and calculate. These skills are social skills. My research hopes to explore using critical thinking to teach children to manage new social experiences. Freire expresses that ‘Critical thinking contrasts with naive thinking’ when he refers to its role in dialogue, communication and true education. (2011, p. 92). If this is so, then teachers are in a position to deliver an education that goes beyond the formal curriculum.
The research process was challenging. There was a vast amount of information on critical thinking available. As I progressed though the reading of critical thinking concepts and contexts, I determined that information
…show more content…
I wondered if I could teach students to look at the opinions and attitudes of others and reason with them critically against their own and as a result gain good citizenry and social skills. This led me to consider moral choices we make and if we could teach children to live by a moral standard that involved the process of critical thinking.
The starting point of the research was difficult to establish. My search began with ‘education and critical thinking’. I considered the theories of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; the original interpretations of deeper understanding of relationships and realities. I then reflected and contemplated the issues concerning young people in this age. I felt that more developed, modern concepts deriving from early educational philosophers would be more applicable to my practice.
The research materialised into an argument for self-learning or self -regulation, this led me to arrive at Dewey. I felt Dewey was too wide for the purpose of this assignment. I was looking for recent developments of critical thinking. The search evolved into ‘critical thinking and social