Critical and Creative Thinking Essay

INTRODUCTIONWhat is opinion? Basic each(prenominal)y, sendiment is one way of life for human to practice the act or exercise their intellectual or process of thought. In another(prenominal) way, persuasion post overly mean as a way of ratiocination and judgment. In easier words, look ating is the active process by which human develops by understandings of us, others and our world. The process of persuasion en commensurates us to solve paradoxs, interpret information, make smack of our feelings and attitudes, discuss important socks, establish beliefs, and trim toward the completion of goals. opinion is an demand component in our life as a human be.As feel outing by Bill Beattie goes,The aim of education should be to find out us rather how to think, than what to think rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men. thought can be derived in two ways, unfavorable mentation and also germin al idea. Critical sentiment is active and purposeful thinking roughly how we arrive at our understandings of everything in this world and selecting those modes of thinking which atomic number 18 intimately successful in clarifying and enhancing our understanding. Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. People who think decisively in a consistent trend attempt to live keen-wittedly, reasonably, and empathically.The function of education is to learn one to think intensively and to think deprecatively. Intelligence plus character that is the goal of authorized education. Martin Luther King, Jr.Critical thinking is an exceptional mode of thinking around every result, content, or paradox in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skilfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them. productive t hinking is a way of looking at problems or situations from a fresh perspective that suggests bizarre solutions which may look unsettling at first scarce so fartually accommodate useful and brilliant. Creative thinking can be inspired almost(prenominal) by an unstructured process such as brainstorming, and by a structured process such as lateral thinking (higher guild thinking). A saucer-eyed definition of creativity is the great power to imagine or invent roughthing new. However, creativity is not the ability to create out of nothing, but the ability to generate new cerebrations by combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas. approximately originative ideas are surprising and brilliant, while others are just simple, good, applicative ideas that no one seems to start thought of yet.Creative thinking is not a talent it is a skill that can be learnt. It empowers the great unwashed by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity a nd where appropriate profits. Edward de BonoCreative thinking is the process which we use when we come up with a new idea. It is the encounter of ideas which halt not been merged before. Brainstorming is one form of creative thinking it works by merging more or lessone elses ideas with your cause to create a new one. You are utilise the ideas of others as a stimulus for your own. This creative thinking process can be unintended or deliberate.It is the function of creative people to perceive the relations amid thoughts, or things or forms of expression that may seem utterly different, and to blend in them into some new forms, the power to connect the seemingly in connected. William PlomerThe sizeableness of critical and creative thinking is undeniable. In order to comply with the internal Education Philosophy which emphasize on the development of a whole-rounded individuals and sufficient of taking contends, CCTS is very crucial and important to be nurtured in every le arners or individual. farewell 1 CURRENT SITUATION OF CCTS IN SCHOOL.I have been working as a induce seeer for 3 years in two different develops. Throughout those 3 years, I have been education Mathematics for one year and inculcateing side Language for rough 2 years. As far as I can remember, during my contract as an side teacher, CCTS was not being apply and in fact, I dont even know the immenseness of critical and creative thinking skills that have to be highlighted and employ to the students.But, I realize that the books Component that currently being taught in school is very suitable and able to nurture CCTS in students. This is because, it promotes students to think of the situation, psychoanalyse the current situation and interpret what is going to happen in the future. as well, some of the publications components such as poems make students think something outside of the habitual and be creative to maneuver with the words and also the meaning of the sentence s.I remember from my previous lineage on Literature Component during my contract teacher is that, the wittingness as to the admit to cultivate CCTS among students in Malaysia has been an issue of concern to many. Malachi Edwin (1992) stated that literature in English besides create reading skills allow for also help develop students critical thinking skills. He adds that these skills allow for in turn provide students opportunities to understand themselves and their married person human beings better. In line with Malachi Edwins view on the potentials of literature and its subroutine in the cultivation of CCTS, the present research is aimed at using literature as the base with which CCTS can be promoted effectively.Literature in English has been chosen from the many subjects offered in the Malaysian class for two reasons. Firstly, literature in English can be seen to edit across the various(a) subjects in the class as the contents of literary texts are so diverse that t hey incorporate social, political, scientific, technological, medical and all other areas of life. Secondly it is an undeniable fact that literature plays an important role in our present curriculum since it is now being taught to students from phase angle 1 to spurt 5 as a component of the English Language curriculum. on that point is no doubt that the very nature of the subject which requires analysis, solving problems and meter reading can encourages critical and creative thinking.In English Language, other syllabus that are currently being taught such as grammar, reading light and others would not make student to fully use their thinking process. As the knowledge is something that you can remember and it is essentially a skill that u can achieve. It is strongly believe that learners can only become honest language users if they, besides using the language and knowing the meaning, could display creative and critical thinking through the language (Kamarul Kabilan, 2000). T his suggests that the learners moldiness be creative in their production of ideas, and critically support them with logical and rational explanation, expatiate and particulars and also examples.For me, as a teacher, it is essential for us to recognise the subject in our curriculum before we can understand and trying to teach students or cultivating CCTS in studying literature. The role of literature in English in the Malaysian curriculum has gone through tremendous changes. forward this, literature components that have been taught in school are just simple to know rough the story and how to answer the examination. Most of the students or even teacher do not know that the literature components is actually a powerful tool that can be used to instil critical and creative thinking in students.The English language syllabus for Form Four states clearly a number of headings of the curriculum but the objective which is of relevance to the present study is Objective Number Three as quote d below listen to, view, read and respond to different texts, and express ideas, opinions, thoughts and feelings imaginatively and creatively in spoken and written form. (Huraian Sukatan Pelajaran, Ting IV. KPM, 2003)Part 2 CHALLENGES FACED IN IMPLEMENTING CCTS IN SCHOOL. at that place are basically three reasons why CCTS is quite difficult to be consumeed in school. They are 1) Teachers themselves, 2) Students background, and 3) School Authority.First, during my contract with the school, I have never been assailable to CCTS. I dont even know the existence of CCTS in school. The first clipping I call ford about CCTS is when all English teacher was sent to short courses on Literature Component in 2009. Besides that, I have never know about the nurture in CCTS and the school never emphasize and jell interest in getting the teacher trained in CCTS.Even though the teachers has been sent to the courses on the implementation of CCTS in Literature Component, we have no idea on how t o implement the CCTS and still lacking in the idea to teach CCTS in class. We basically have the basic idea of CCTS but the problem is, we do not know how to implement the skills in direction the language. Besides that, teachers have a lot of responsible rather than program line students. There is lots of clerical work that should be through. This is somehow can dissipate teachers focalize in giving all out in class. Teachers were given(p) work out of their scope. There is too much administrative work and teaching subjects they were not trained for.In Malaysian education context, teachers play huge role in teaching and encyclopaedism. They determine and direct the content, activities and processes of teaching and information in classrooms. It is the teachers who decide on the aims, goals, and strategies of teaching to be implemented in classrooms. Unfortunately, not all teachers have the same idea about teaching. It is not only the students who quest to think and act creativ ely and critically but the teacher should also do the same. When I was thinking about the Set Induction for my lesson, I had been challenged to think of a set consequence that I had never use or seen before. In making the students fire to what the lesson are going to be for that day, I have been using songs, looseness or even quotes from famous celebrities for my induction set.Secondly, the education system should teach students to be great thinkers, not followers. Unfortunately, it did not work out that well. This cogency be happening because of the students background. Some meters, the family is not very helpful in ensuring the successfulness of one student. Parents also play an important role in providing encouragement for children to learn. Encouragement and incentives such as praise and prizes should be given to kids if they get good results. The education of the child is the collective province of the family members. The education of the children in a family is the collec tive responsibility of all family members.The student will become a good thinker and they should be able to master critical and creative thinking. As such, they should be trained with activities that have been focused and aimed to produce a high intellect thinker. Unfortunately, not all students are interested because they fail to see the importance of thinking skills or even learning English. In short they do not know why they need to learn English. One way to solve this problem is, we as a teachers have to give a reason and rational in learning English. I have to do this, because students nowadays forever want to know or have rewards when they do things, including studying.Thirdly, the school representation can also become a problem for teacher to implement the CCTS. The task given to teachers by the school authority sometimes can take teachers time and energy. Besides that, the teachers need to comply with the syllabus that they had to finish up in the given time. This is som etimes can become a challenge for teacher to spend time in conducting critical and creative thinking in class.Even when I was a teacher, I have some difficulties in finishing the syllabus on time, especially Literature Component. When teaching Literature Component, I need to take some extra time to let the students think about the story or poems. Some students do not know how to interpret the information from the poem. This is actually quite fleshy for teacher to teach the students the thinking skills when there is no enough time. Thinking skills is not something that the teacher can teach over night, but it takes some time to do it.Part 3 POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATION any problem must have a cure. In order for CCTS to be fully implemented and useful in school system, all the teachers need to be exposed to any new invention in prevalent and thinking skills specifically as well as how to incorporate them in the lessons, such as through videos, workshops, talks, and others. Besides that, continuous development must be carried out from time to time as refresher course for the teachers. This is because, teacher are just like another human being that always forgets and tend to be careless.Apart from that, teachers need to be aware of the importance of thinking skills so that it will be carried out in the classroom more and can be fully utilised on classroom. Furthermore, the questions asked in the classrooms will determine the thinking that the pupils are doing, so teachers need to be exposed and nurtured to have and apply questions and questioning technique that will elicit thinking.Teachers should also know the practise that will be done in classroom. The activity should be able to get students to observe the texts peculiarly literature components carefully and critically, to draw upon their vocabulary and to think creatively and critically about the material given.Besides training and preparing teacher to be critical and creative, problem-based lea rning (PBL) can also be one of the methods that can be used to challenge students to learn how to think. Students will work cooperatively in groups to find solutions to real world problems and more importantly, to develop skills to become sovereign learners. Here, the goal of problem-based learning is viewed as learning for capability rather than learning for the sake of acquiring knowledge. Students develop critical thinking abilities by incessantly relating what ideas they generate and to what they want to do with the information (Gallagher, 1997).In an activity like problem solving, both kinds of thinking are significant to us. First, we must raise and study the problem then we must create potential solutions succeeding(a) we must pick and implement the best solution and finally, we must tax the efficiency of the solution. As you can see, this process reveals an alternation between the two kinds of thinking, critical and creative. In practice, both kinds of thinking operate together much of the time and are not really independent of each other.Furthermore, for me, as a teacher we have to think aloud in front of our students. let them comprehend what are we thinking and puzzling our way slowly through problems in the subject. I have tried to think aloud in class in front of my students, and they show a good response. Especially, when they say that they never think the way that I thought and surprise to hear my thought. But, when doing this, the teacher should voice our thinking slowly and clearly, so the students able to hear them and response to them.In Critical and Creative Thinking Skills class, I have learned about Socratic questioning. Now I know that as a teacher, we have to regularly question our students Socratically. Such as, investigating various dimensions of their thinking their purpose, their evidence, reasons, data, their claims, beliefs, interpretations, deductions, conclusions, the implications and consequences of their thought, their r esponse to alternative thinking from contrasting points of view, and others.CONCLUSIONCreative and critical thinking skills should not be taught separately as an disjointed entity, but embedded in the subject matter and woven into the curriculum. collectable to this, the present educational system in Malaysia no longer put emphasis on the 3Rs but rather stressed critical thinking skills, scientific skills as well as technological skills in the schools curriculum.It is in fact possible to do creative and critical thinking activity often, in any English language class. However, being stuck in the curriculum system as in Malaysia, with the exam-oriented teaching and learning in school, I tend to predict that CCTS will be quite hard to be fully implemented in school. However, with the fresh English curriculum introduced by the Ministry of Education starting from year 2010, I really expect that students will be further exposed with new ways of teaching and learning in English.It was st ated that the change of the curriculum involves the language art and grammar components with focus on fun learning as well as the ability converse in Standard English, with emphasis on pronunciation and phonics (Ministry of Education, 2009). If the changes are actually applied and assessments are made on the result, I am certain that we can do better in enlightening the teaching and learning of English in Malaysia and at the same time produce students who are able to think critically and creatively in any situations.REFERENCESBeyer, B. (1987). Practical Strategies for the Teaching of Thinking. Boston Ally and Bacon Inc.Kamarul Kabilan ( 2000) .Creative and Critical Thinking in language Classroom.The internet TESL Journal, Vol. VI, No. 6, June 2000 retrieved 16th April 2010 from http//iteslj.org/Techniques/Kabilan-CriticalThinking.htmlMoore,K.D. (2005). Effective instructional strategies from conjecture to practice. California Sage Publications IncNurliza Othman (2002) Thinking Skil ls A motivational Factor in ELT. Jurnal Pendidikan IPBA (2) 5 2002 101-109White, R.V. (1995) .New Ways in Teaching Writing. USA Teachers of English to Speakers of different Languages ,Inc