A few days ago, my 7-year-old niece came to visit the house and really taught me a lesson.
Everyone sat on the sofa in the living room to play with the children, and accidentally mentioned the classic fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood" that the little niece was watching.
I thought my little niece would like Little Red Riding Hood's innocence, but she asked a series of questions:
The forest is so dangerous, why does Little Red Riding Hood still live in the forest with her grandmother?
Little Red Riding Hood is so young and disobedient, why should she go to her grandmother by herself?
This made me can't help but sigh very much: although the little niece is only 7 years old, she has a strong "critical thinking", thinking back to when I was 7 years old, I did not have such a sober cognition.
Although parents now pay more and more attention to their children's education, everyone will pay more attention to subject education, interests and specialties, and pay less attention to the cultivation of "critical thinking".
However, for us who survive in modern society, "critical thinking" is crucial, and it is also sooner rather than later to cultivate "critical thinking" for children.
What is "critical thinking"?
When it comes to "critical thinking", many parents may feel that there is a fog in the clouds, and it sounds like "not knowing what to do", but in fact, "critical thinking" is not complicated.
To put it simply, it is the ability to maintain rational thinking, to face the opinions and ideas of others, and to get its own reliable conclusions through logical thinking.
Just like the little niece's questioning of Little Red Riding Hood, although such a classic fairy tale is familiar to everyone, from the perspective of realistic logic, it will indeed seem a little "strange" and not in line with our rational thinking mode.
For "critical thinking", the key is to maintain a rational color, from the questioning of the point of view, through the analysis to form their own conclusions and opinions, for the child to cultivate "critical thinking", we often have to encourage them to try to think independently, encourage children to independently analyze things, make conclusions.
Why is "critical thinking" so important?
In the past, when we need to obtain information, we may turn to the "encyclopedia", or ask experienced people directly, and the answers are generally more reliable, and there is no need to spend a lot of energy to determine whether this information is correct.
However, with the rapid development of network information in recent decades, people's access to information channels is unprecedentedly rich, people's information intake, a large part from social networking sites, self-media, in the face of such a huge and complex, true and false information, our "information screening" ability is very important.
Just like the popular saying now, "In the past, the most important thing for a person was IQ and emotional intelligence, and now the most important thing is to search for business." "The so-called search quotient refers to our ability to search and identify information.
The cultivation of this kind of information screening ability, the most critical is to let children have "critical thinking", otherwise children will be easily fooled, and it is easy to "suffer losses and be deceived".
For example, the son of my colleague's family once encountered such a thing, the child just went to junior high school, unintentionally saw someone in a group chat to send a message saying "brush single to earn money", is worried that his parents do not give a new mobile phone, he quickly moved his crooked thoughts.
At the beginning, the process was quite smooth, and the child did earn dozens of dollars, but before long, the other party claimed that it needed to be "advanced", and the child did not hesitate to find classmates and parents, and worked hard to "raise" more than a thousand yuan, and the results can be imagined to be adrift.
In real life, there are countless similar scams on the Internet, and even many adults will step into the pit and be deceived if they are not careful, not to mention shallow children.
Therefore, in order to let children not suffer losses in this complex society and not be deceived by bad people with ulterior motives, it is very necessary to cultivate "critical thinking" for them from an early age.
How to cultivate "critical thinking" for children?
The American education community has previously proposed the "4C core ability", "critical thinking " is an important part of it, and in order to cultivate children's "critical thinking", many American primary schools will take the following educational methods, we can learn from the experience of educating children.
1. Ask questions using the "5W1H model"
The so-called "5W1H model" is actually 6 questions, when children hear a certain point of view, we should encourage them to ask the following questions:
Who: Who said that? Is it an expert? Is it a stakeholder?
What: What was said? Is there a definitive basis?
Where: Where did things happen?
Why: Why do people say that? What are the motivations?
When: When did you come to the conclusion? Pre-prediction or post-event analysis?
How: How did the other party put forward such a point of view and draw conclusions?
Through the above series of questions, children can logically make reasonable judgments and questions, and then consider the rationality of the viewpoint and develop the habit of "critical" thinking.
2. Build a diverse perspective
Many things in the world are not black and white, for children to develop "critical thinking", we also need to help them get rid of the "right" and "wrong" two mindsets, to establish a pluralistic point of view.
For example, list two very different positive and negative views, ask the child to put forward supporting arguments for both sides, and consider whether there are other feasible views in addition to the two views, and encourage the child to think from different angles and see more possibilities.
3. Practice more in life
"Critical thinking" is actually just a habit of thinking, we can fully integrate it into all aspects of life, in daily life, the child to practice "critical thinking".
For example, in a controversial event popular on the Internet, we can ask what is the child's point of view, and why do they hold such a view? Then let him assume that his point of view is completely opposite, how to criticize or convince the previous self. Through such reverse thinking, exercise children's critical thinking and look at things more comprehensively.
epilogue:
"Critical thinking" may seem "unfathomable", but it is actually a basic skill that children should master the most.
In real life, we should consciously establish such a thinking mode for children, help children identify all kinds of information that is true and false on the Internet and in life, avoid being in the clouds, and develop their ability to think independently.
Today's topic: Do you pay attention to cultivating "critical thinking" for your children?