Thoughts on Thinking
Personal Essay - Portfolio

As small children pointing to every surrounding object, as students sitting behind desks, as adults watching the news - we add to our bank of knowledge. Our brains act as our personal bank accounts, Knowledge being the crisp bills deemed so valuable. We circulate through our Knowledge - making withdrawals, transferring funds, making deposits. We replace old ideas with new ones, spend our funds where needed, and save as much as we possibly can. Thinking manages the account. Thinking fills out the transaction slips and hits the buttons on the ATM. To manage effectively, Thinking needs to learn how the operation works. Growing minds need guidance. Without guidance our knowledge could be flawed; we might end up depositing counterfeit bills into our account. Schooling is a primary source of guidance in many lives. Schooling used to have Thinking’s best interest in mind. Schooling has become a pushy banker that started out by telling Thinking how to spend and use Knowledge, and has worked its way into Thinking’s position. Schooling is guilty of identity theft, and is now managing Knowledge in Thinking’s absence.
Thinking and Knowledge are meant to have a symbiotic relationship. Knowledge, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, “applies to any body of facts gathered by study, observation, or experience, and to the ideas inferred from these facts”(Oxford). Thinking is part of knowledge; it occupies the second half of its definition. In the same way, knowledge is a part of thinking: thinking is the application of knowledge. Both concepts are a part of the other, needing the other to be complete. Schooling has torn the words apart from their tight embrace, and has left Thinking in the dust while placing Knowledge on a pedestal.
Joseph E. Stiglitz of the World Bank introduced the concept of “knowledge as a public good” (Vinson). Knowledge proves to be the ultimate good in that it is “available to anyone, its use by one person does not limit its use by anyone else” (Vinson) and it does not depreciate. Competition and measurement accompany the mentality of knowledge being a type of revenue. Schooling reinforces this mentality as “teachers are required to ‘teach to the test’”(Fields). Suzanne Fields, a columnist of the Washington Times, is one of many who recognize critical thinking to be of little priority in schooling. Critical thinking is “self-guided, self-disciplined thinking that aims to take the reasoning we all do naturally to a higher level” (Elder). Thinking and Knowledge must work together and overlap in order to create critical thinking. Fields communicates how “critical thinking is limited to figuring out how to answer questions so that test scores are high enough that school districts don't lose federal money” (Fields). Schools are required to use knowledge as revenue, and have had to omit teachings of critical thinking from schooling as a trade off for high test scores and funding. Knowledge has become a substitute for thinking. Linda Elder, a prominent authority on critical thinking, recognizes “much of our thinking, left to itself, [to be] sloppy, distorted, partial, uninformed, or prejudiced” (Elder). Thinking needs guidance and direction because “the quality of our life and all of the decisions we make depend precisely on the quality of our thought” (Elder). Many people have fallen victim to schooling that “neither values fair-minded critical thinking nor encourages it” (Elder).
Schooling teaches students to want nothing more than the answers. My attitude throughout high school was all about having the answers. I was not concerned with what I learned; how well I did was what mattered. I wanted that fat splotchy red pen to mark an A at the top of my papers. I wanted the official gritty paper to have a vertical column of A’s and Bs. Give me the answers; tell me what answers I need to get the A and I will get them. This way of thinking was always rewarded in my schooling career. Many of my peers participated in the fierce competition of having a high measure of success on paper. My teachers and parents labeled this attitude as ambitious. It took my college experience thus far to realize the ignorance in simply wanting the answers. Grades measure effort, and I am happy to have grades reflecting the amount of work I put into a class. I deserve the A for effort. But as for caring about what I was taught, I give myself the first C I have ever received. It turns out, having the answers is not what education is all about. As an aspiring English teacher, the issue of critical thinking was first introduced to me in an education course. I was quick to realize how one special English teacher successfully integrated critical thinking into her classroom. Without the label, I had had no idea at the time what an amazing gift this teacher had bestowed upon me. After all, I had school all figured out; I knew how to get the grades I wanted.
I am part of the small percentage of students who had a teacher have critical thinking be a goal in their teachings. I am able to recognize a person’s ability (or inability) to think in an enriched and rewarding way in the classes I am currently taking. I find most students around me in dire need of structure. When given an assignment anything short of step-by-step instructions, a desperate and hopeless stare fills the eyes of my peers around me. It worries me to find this reality to be so overbearing and relevant. “Teachers must move beyond rote and merely active engagement, and work toward transforming how students reason through complex issues, to look beyond easy answers” (Elder). Future teachers who are unable practice critical thinking will leave their students lacking this valuable ability. Where will we break the cycle? It is important to fuse Knowledge and Thinking back together; to have Knowledge accompany Thinking rather than serve as a substitute. We can become great thinkers “by not accepting information at face value, but by thinking deeply for [our] selves, asking questions, and refining [our] thinking over time” (Elder). Students need to be introduced to this type of thinking early to leave time for its development. We must give the management of our Knowledge accounts back to Thinking. Although Thinking might make mistakes by over drafting the account or bouncing checks, there is value in learning lessons through your own thought. My hope for the future is that teachers who are able to practice and implement critical thinking into the classroom provide other teachers with the tools they need to do so as well. My hope is to help students identify what critical thinking is by clearly labeling specific thoughts they have as “critical”. Change is never easy, and is scary most of the time. To think differently is big step for anyone. To live lives of worth, we must think about thinking, and develop thoughts of true quality.












Works Cited

Elder, Linda. "Are You a Critical Thinker." 12 Mar. 2009. LexisNexis. CSU Library. Morgan
Library, Fort Collins. 01 May 2009 .

Fields, Suzanne. "Re-opening the American Mind." 20 Sept. 2007. LexisNexis. CSU Library.
Morgan Library, Fort Collins. 21 Apr. 2009 .

Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon P, New York, 1989.


Vinson, Jack. "Knowledge as a Public Good." 08 Sept. 2007. LexisNexis. CSU Library. Morgan
Library, Fort Collins. 16 Apr. 2009 .