What is Critical Thinking?

This concept, one that seems to be dreaded by some and deified by others.  What is it?  The term, the meaning, the idea?  It seems to be something that is relative, though honestly, the whole, "truth is relative" thing doesn't make sense, the world has proven that someone is always wrong, and normally there are only a few "rights."  I mean, if I said a cucumber could fly, and I believed that in my mind, does that make it true?  No, it just means I'm slightly off the deep end.

So, my own definition of critical thinking, something that I believe it may be, is this: A means of thinking using reasoning skills, based off of research and evidence pointing to discernible facts, and based off of what you know to be true, you make judgments and off of those judgments you act.  Seems complicated and convoluted enough to get into a dictionary!  Where have I heard the term critical thinking?  Pretty much everywhere in school.  I mean, the teachers practically force the term down your throat.  They say, "use your critical thinking skills to solve this problem", or, "based on this fact, using critical thinking, determine if blah blah blah."  Normally in a text book when you see, "use critical thinking to," it normally means, don't actually think critically, come to the answer we want you to.

 (Please note, this next paragraph is filled with excess sarcasm)

I was told to find an "expert's" definition of what critical thinking is.  I had to ask myself, what the heck is an expert on critical thinking?  Google to the rescue!    How wonderful it is that there was a site devoted to critical thinking, why, it made my search so much easier, and I mean, if the person has a website, it means they're an expert right?  Right!  Here is the link to the Website!!! that I found, is is run by a guy named Dan Kurland, who is all for critical reading, and he has a nice page on critical thinking.  His definition, loosely used, is that Critical Thinking is a complex combination of skills primarily: rationality, self-awareness, honesty, open-mindedness, discipline, and judgment.  Who knew that it took so many skills to think critically!?

The expert says this: "Critical thinkers are active, not passive.  They ask  questions and analyze. They consciously apply tactics and strategies to uncover meaning or assure their understanding. Critical thinkers do not take an egotistical view of the world. They are open to new ideas and perspectives.  They are willing to challenge their beliefs and investigate competing evidence."  So basically, you have to be doing that particular process to think critically.  The connection between this class, Research Strategies critical thinking is that I assume we're going to be "challenging our beliefs" in hopes of coming into agreement with whatever the motives of the class are. 

We'll see how this all works and goes, I am gonna try to keep an open mind and not let my "jaded" views get into the way too much.  The irony of it all is that as a Senior I am taking a diversity course and only because it was required to graduate.  I am pretty much at this point set in my views, with my own facts and evidence to back them up, am I going to ignore other peoples opinions and evidence?  No, but my mind is no longer as mailable as it was when I was a freshman and sophomore.  I like challenging courses and I feel like this one might stretch me in ways I have grown unaccustomed too, here's to a new (final, for now) semester.