Picture credit - Sage Pippalada
Day 64 - Critical Thinking Skill
12 June 2020
sirurp@gmail.com
My learning for the day
Today I want to summarise two stories from mythology on critical thinking skills.
I could not find a suitable story about critical thinking from the Greek Mythology. I therefore picked up something from Buddhism (this is not strictly a mythological story though).
I dedicate this article to Dr David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva, who created the framework of Appreciative Inquiry (a different way of asking questions).
Story 1 - Sage Pippalada (from Hindu mythology)
Critical thinking is all about asking the right questions so that we can do an objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.
This story is about a Book of Questions (Prashnopanishad - Prashna means a question, Upanishad is an ancient Sanskrit text of spiritual teaching).
Sage Pippalada is the author of this Upanishad (Upanishads are answers to questions about meaning of life, purpose of life, ways to get everlasting joy, source of creation etc.).
Pippalada was the son of Sage Dadhichi who gave his life to save gods. Dadhichi’s wife wanted to follow her husband so she left the newborn Pippalada under the care of a Peepal tree (hence the name Pippalada).
When Pippalada grew up, he got insights from Lord Shiva about life and became a revered Sage.
Six disciples approached Pippalada to get answers for questions about life; Pippalada’s answers to these questions is Prashnopanishad.
These are the six questions -
- How did life begin?
- What is a living being?
- Where does life originate from?
- What is the role of each God in human’s different states e.g. sleeping, waking and dreaming etc.?
- What is meditation, and why meditate?
- What is immortal in the human being?
You can learn more from these sources - Questions that inspire India by Ram Lingam, Hindu Social Polity by V Nagarajan, The Science of Prashna Upanishad by Karthikeyan Sreedharan
Story 2 - The unanswered questions (from Buddhism)
The unanswered questions are those that Buddha refused to answer.
Thích Nhất Hạnh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk says, “The Buddha always told his disciples not to waste their time and energy in metaphysical speculation. Whenever Buddha was asked a metaphysical question, he remained silent. Questioned one day about the problem of the infinity of the world, the Buddha said - Whether the world is finite or infinite, limited or unlimited, the problem of your liberation remains the same."
These are the questions that Buddha refused to answer -
- Is the world eternal?
- Is the world finite?
- Is the soul and the body the same?
- Does a realized person exist after death?
- What am I?
- Did I exist in the past?
- Shall I exist in future?
The Learning
It is very interesting to see that one sage makes it his life’s purpose to write about Life’s most important questions whereas the other sage asks us NOT to waste time in trying to find answers for these questions.
My learning so far on this topic
Day 4 post - 3 Simple Habits to Improve Your Critical Thinking
Day 14 post - The Six Hats of Critical Thinking and How to Use Them
Day 24 post - The Six Types of Socratic Questions
Day 34 post - Two TED talks - Encourage critical thinking with 3 questions & This is what it’s like to go undercover in North Korea
Day 44 post - Two books - Weaponized Lies & Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking
Day 54 post - Two movies - Girl Boxer & The boy who cried warming
What is Critical Thinking Skill?
Critical thinking skill is the ability to think in an organized and rational manner in order to understand connections between ideas and/or facts. While Creative Thinking is about finding new ways of solving problems, Critical Thinking is about evaluating the new ways proposed by the Creative Thinker.
How to improve this skill?
Set a goal to become a go-to person by mastering the art and science of critical thinking.
Follow the LAST model to build your personal brand as a Guru of critical thinking.
Learn - Invest time in learning different frameworks/ models/ techniques of critical thinking
Apply -
Identify a model suitable to you
Create a template to document the flow of the process
Find opportunities to use the selected method/ template
Maintain record/ process flow of every important activities you did with respect to critical thinking
Maintain notes of your thoughts/ insights/ failures/ challenges…. to be used for sharing/ training others
Share - Share the insights captured in step 2 above in a planned manner (social media posts, blogs, videos, study notes…)
Train - Generate opportunities to train your peers and team members so that, over time, your organization benefits from your efforts
Purpose of this document
I took a 66 day challenge to study Life Skills last year (10 April 2019). To my astonishment, I succeeded in studying for 66 days one skill a day.
My objectives of learning these skills were - To strengthen my mind to face life’s challenges with ease, To use these skills in my worklife for a better performance, To use these skills in my personal life for enriching my relationships, To open new possibilities to surprise myself.
This is my next 66 day challenge (from 10 April 2020) - To share my Life Skills learning with my social media friends.
I pray that my toil helps you in your success journey.
What are Life Skills?
UNICEF defines Life skills as - psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They are loosely grouped into three broad categories of skills
- cognitive skills for analyzing and using information,
- personal skills for developing personal agency and managing oneself,
- inter-personal skills for communicating and interacting effectively with others.
Which LifeSkills are covered?
The World Health Organisation identified these basic areas of life skills that are relevant across cultures:
1. Decision-making
2. Problem-solving
3. Creative thinking
4. Critical thinking
5. Communication
6. Interpersonal skills
7. Self-awareness
8. Empathy
9. Coping with emotions
10. Coping with stress.
Some trivia
‘Life skills’ was never part of the school curriculum. WHO/ UNESCO mandated academia to teach these skills in all schools across the globe in 1993.
Different countries educate their children in these skills with different objectives
- Zimbabwe and Thailand - prevention of HIV/AIDS
- Mexico - prevention of adolescent pregnancy
- United Kingdom - child abuse prevention
- USA - prevention of substance abuse and violence
- South Africa and Colombia - positive socialization of children.
No comments:
Post a Comment