On Critical Thinking: A Brief Explanation and Its Importance on Education

Final Task 1

On Critical Thinking: A Brief Explanation and Its Importance on Education

Words Count: 504

For a long time, people have always believed that the world is anything but round. It was Aristotle who finally came with a theory of spherical shape of Earth. Aristotle's conclusion was withdrawn since the shadow of Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse is round (Stocks, 2013). It was not easy to come up with such theory which was against a common belief. But, Aristotle came with his critical thinking and proved that the previous theory was wrong.

So, what is critical thinking? Paul and Elder (2006, p.4) state that "critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it". According to Sanburn (2012), a recent survey that was conducted to 1000 participants showed that 36 percent of college leaders believe that a bachelor's degree should teach students how to think critically, while only 21 percent of them believe that the purposes of completing a bachelor's degree is to gain skills and knowledge for a career.

However, the Government of Indonesia seems not ready to implement the critical thinking into its educational system. For example, the Government has a National Final Exam to decide the graduation of the students. The exams are all given in multiple choice questions. Therefore, there is a huge chance that students will not be able to demonstrate what they have learned by expressing ideas, as no critical thinking is needed in order to pass the exam.

The problem could be minimized should the Government of Indonesia introduce the critical thinking into its educational system in the earlier stage. By having that, students will be taught not only how to memorize subjects, but also to question, analyze, and be a part in developing