Do Critical Thinkers Really Have Critical Thinking?

I firmly believe that the term "critical thinking" is in fact far less related to strict guidelines of what is or is not critical thinking, but rather the ability to step back from any given practice, problem - anything really - and reexamine it anew. When companies are asking for people who have critical thinking skills it's not that they are asking for employees to sit down, take a test where they "critically think" about different scenarios, and then describe the "right" answer - and I believe that is what most students believe they are being asked to do - but rather that the company is asking you to sit down and examine those scenarios to see what "weird" ideas you can come up with. Because being weird is how you innovate, and as economies become more competitive than at any point in human history companies have to be innovating constantly in order to stay alive. …show more content…
My above example illustrates perfectly how the standard testing system of secondary and post-secondary education has damaged critical thinking skills. Students are expected to take in disparate information, distill it down to core parts, and then regurgitate it into essays or exams in a "perfect" way to illustrate that they understand the subject. Well if the subject is Newtonian physics then you might argue that there absolutely is a "perfect" answer, and that answer is always correct...until you go very very fast - near the speed of light - and Newtonian physics doesn't work anymore, which led to Einstein's theories of General Relativity and especially Special Relativity. What does that have to do with a student getting a job? Einstein is great and all but how does that affect me in the real