Workshop- Thinking

THINKING SKILLS

Critical and Creative Thinking 

The Department of English, MK Bhavnagar University had a two- Day ‘Thinking Skills Workshop’, 13- 14 August 2022 by Prof. Milan Pandya.

Milan Pandya is a teacher, trainer and educator in the field of Thinking Skills i.e. Critical, Creative and Design Thinking, English Language Teaching & Communication Skills. With more than 12 years of teaching experience, Mr. Pandya has authored 02 books, and presented and published a number of research papers in national and international conferences and journals. Mr. Pandya has BA & MA in English Literature, M.Phil in English Language Teaching (ELT) & his Ph.D involves study into Online Teaching, Communicative Competence & Critical Thinking. He currently holds a position of Vice President of Advancement at Critical Thinking Solutions company in Ontario, Canada, and teaches at multiple colleges such as Conestoga and Sheridan college in Ontario, Canada.

This blog deals with the learning outcome of this two- day Thinking skills workshop.

This workshop was wonderful beyond imagination, in the Socratic method of class (question- answer, interactive class) . Thinking is distinguished as Critical, Creative and Design Thinking and our workshop majorly focused on critical and creative thinking process.

What is critical thinking? (classroom discussion)

Critical thinking is not accepting anything of a face value, thinking over it giving it our own personal opinion and reflection. Being skeptical, questioning our own thoughts or ideas.

The basic way to have critical thinking is having logical, Rational and Scientific Thinking. Critical thinking is not just a way of being thoughtful but It's a way of life. Milan Pandya sir gave a wonderful statement, a definition of critical thinking-

 “Thinking about thinking in order to improve thinking.”

All human beings, Homo sapiens on this world are identical, two legs, two hands, language, ability to speak etc. yes the deformity is an exceptional case. But what makes human beings different from each other is their own mental capacity, thinking power. Thinking skills are necessary in life. Everyday, every minute we need to plan for ourselves, make a variety of decisions, small or big. Human being is also an animal, a social animal and its thinking capacity makes it different from other living beings. Humans are rational animals, along with being social, our whole life depends on thinking.

The most important thing to remember is CONTEXT. Context is a must in critical thinking and also in life. If we don't know the context we might miss the truth or get a wrong answer, outcome.

E.g.: if we take a number 2. Someone wins two Nobel prizes, then two is a great number in context to Nobel prize, there are rare cases of winning two Nobel prizes. And if we take two in the context of marks. Gaining 2/20 is too low. Then here two is lesser in value.

In class we practiced some lighter examples of critical thinking. Here I will discuss the same and will also add a few new examples.

1. Here is an ad on Glori soap featured by Akshay Kumar. Today we rarely find this soap. Do you really think a Big star and a citizen of Canada will be using this soap? A soap of around 20-25 rupees.

Also we have an ad for lux soap by various Bollywood actresses and they enthusiastically share its discount’s news. Does 3-4% of discount even matter to the Crore earners? It's all to influence society. A critical insight helps us to read what is not said.

2. Look at this image. Do you find something fishy?

Yes, this is an image from a popular serial ‘Yeh Hai Mohabbatein’. What do you find? Female protagonist’s hand is fractured and so male protagonist is helping her to drape a saree. But how could she do a flawless make and hairstyle on her own!

This is critical insight. Question everything and everywhere

Milan sir gave us a wonderful mantra which would help us to think, criticize and lead us to read absence. “If something is true what else has to be true within.”

Here’s a tweet by Shraddha Kapoor for which she was trolled a lot, she shared this image talking about Indian soldiers and later came to know that the place is not Siachen and also these are not Indian soldiers but Russian Soldiers.

This was the Tweet by Kiran Bedi (the first female IPS ) and it was really funny to know that he video she shared was an edited video not a real one.

https://www.altnews.in/scene-from-2017-movie-viral-as-actual-shark-attack-on-helicopter/

This is the recent tweet by Satish Shah, Indian flag of 1942. If we know the history we realize that this flag was selected as national flag after independence.

This was the national flag during 1942, Quit India movement.

This tweet also went viral saying that Gandhi was a part of the British Military, pre- independence but after fact checking news came that Mahatma Gandhi formed two football clubs in Johannesburg and Pretoria. This image was that of the team, taken circa 1913 in South Africa.

Read the full article by ALT news: https://www.altnews.in/no-this-photo-doesnt-show-gandhi-as-part-of-british-army-pre-independence/

Looking at all this scenario we realize that critical thinking is very necessary. If we start believing in any of this without thinking perhaps we will start living in a fake, imaginary world built by social media. Also Amitabh Bachchan, Shradddha Kapoor all big stars have a great fan following and some also consider them to be their ideal and so they will always believe everything said or posted by them without even cross- checking or knowing the truth. It doesn't mean to not love, like or follow anyone but the most important is to have your own individual thinking.

In earlier periods also this type of stupid talks were happening but all that was limited to group of people but today due to social media stupidity is not limits to oneself.

“Man is the Storytelling Animal, and that in stories are his identity, his meaning, and his lifeblood.” -Salman Rushdie ( Luka and the fire of Like)

There are stories everywhere but it's necessary to identify what is fact, belief, opinion and truth.

The teacher might be wrong. Learn to think for yourself. A student always believes what is said by a teacher but one should not rely on even a teacher to think for themselves. Be individual, be oneself.

ખેડ, ખાતરી ને ખંજવાળ જાતે કરવી સારી.

Developing an ability to think is equal to developing a good physical strength, gym process.

Thinking process = Gym process.

In the beginning you might think that humans are rational animals but modifying it we can say humans have a capacity to be rational. To be rational a mind is trained or is needed to be trained in a particular way.

E.g: players of any sport get trained to be perfect in that.

Similarly, critical and creative thinkers are not born thinkers, they go through a thinking process every time and train their mind to think.

One might feel that question is a way of thinking and contracts wh idea of training a mind to think because infants keep on questioning. But it is to be understood that asking questions doesn't mean that one is a critical thinker. Choice of question and arising to right question at a right time and place is important.

Beginning with creative thinking, look at an image, is this creative?

Perhaps it's unsafe! Harmful. Technomodication by the collective of bicycle and sewing machines. This image can be conceived in various ways. It's 'The Family Bicycle,' with a sewing machine included for dear old Mom. Invented by Charles Steinlauf in 1939 so the whole family can get out and enjoy some family exercise and catch up on some sewing, too.

Its difficult to call it a creative because to be creative two are compulsory characteristics- To be original, Creation must be of some value.

It's an original idea but it's not adding a complete value to life or anything.

Next we had a wonderful activity to know whether we are creative or not.

We had to make a category in which at least two items from the image can be considered.

Various categories popped up like toys, sports equipment, food, garden, religion, occupations, etc but important is how one can, you can look at things differently, how creative you are. Some of the best categories popped up in the class were

• Shakespeare’s tragedy- hamlet, Macbeth
• Books- gun island, home and the world, great Gatsby, Frankenstein
• Proverbs- apple of my eye, pen is mightier than sword
• Things associated with apple- Adam eve story, MacBook
• Metaphor in literature- axe, painting plate
• Quotes- Abdul Kalam on Pizza, today is a present
• Bollywood songs
• LGBTQ- color plate, no gender of robot
• Movie names
• Phallocentric
• Current news, on Salman Rushdie- a book, fatva, being stabbed.

If you find any new category write in the comment.

Training the mind to be creative is being able to see what others cannot see. Change the way of looking.

We also had another activity in which we were shown a picture and had to give its unobvious uses, for example of brush- painting, cleaning comb, scratching; of Gogals to hold your hairs; it was a practice to see things beyond its purpose and try to be creative.

Patience is necessary to be creative, as physique can be made with patience in the training. Abstract thinking is not at all an easy task.

Further we had a thought experiment, which brushed our brains to a great extent. Milan sir gave us trolley -ology questions to apply our mind in a creative and critical way.

It was really a great exercise. This exercise had no right or wrong answer. It was a test of an ethical dilemma. here giving answer isn't important an argument behind  the answer is important. 

Learning outcome:

This workshop gave me a way or clear insight into how to start thinking. when to think? Thinking is perhaps the most difficult process. we have a habit of accepting what news reaches us and even we might lack information where to fact check but the idea of what else is true helps to doubt what is said and then we can go for the real, correct news. Its not necessary that thinking will always give us answer or solution, it might confuse us more but it develops an ability which differentiates us from other. constructing an argument is important. learnt to be skeptical, rational and look at the plausibility. 

Our workshop ended with the feedback and vote of thanks by the students and the group photo with sir.

These two days were really a worthy weekend full of fun and knowledge. Attending this workshop was truly enjoyable Thank to Dr. Dilip Barad sir and Prof. Milan Pandya Sir.