Critical Thinking Knowledge Skills

To be a professional of any kind in the next 20 years, or even an enlightened citizen, will require a complicated set of thinking skills, more than reading and writing. The world isn’t filtered as it once was. Kids are thinking. What we’re trying to do is have them do it well.

Peter Scharf, Professor of Social Ecology

Critical thinkers are intellectually curious

Critical thinkers are open-minded

Critical thinkers avoid “Red Herrings”1. Topic A is under discussion

2. Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A =

3. Topic A is abandoned.

Critical thinkers know how to use anecdotes (stories) effectively

Critical thinkers know how to handle confusion

Critical thinkers are able to control emotion

Critical thinkers are sensitive to the needs of others

Critical thinkers can distinguish between a conclusion that might be “true” and one that they would like to be “true”

Critical thinkers can admit to not knowing something

Critical thinkers seek a “dialogical” approach to the process of argument

Communication Critical ThinkingBy Jack Sterk and Jim Marteney

The End