Do pakistani Students Lack Critical Thinking Skills?

This is a very interesting article to read. The link is as follow:
http://www.pakalumni.com/profiles/blogs/do-pakistani-students-lack
 In pakistan, students are excelling in different fields of education and related technology. However, do we still stand up equal to the other students all around the world? Whta is that we lack when it comes to critical thinking. This article by Riaz Haq fascinated me. . .hence sharing it here.

Critical Thinking iin Education.

Hey everyone! Well, while searching through some articles for importance of critical thinking in education, i came across this very interesting slide. Sharing it with you guys.

http://www.slideshare.net/erusten/critical-thinking-in-education

Self Interest and Critical Thinking

By definition, a Critical Thinker is a rational, positive thinker with an essential quality of fair-mindedness. So is it that He/She is always right/fair in their judgments or are they even affected by Self Interest?

Crisis Guide: Pakistan

http://www.cfr.org/interactives/CG_Pakistan/index.html?cid=oth-foreign_affairs-foreign_affairs-crisis_guide_pakistan-100710

it is 9 minutes documentary on the Pakistan's crisis and her capability of dealing the crisis, it is relevant to the reading sir gave us for the third hourly.

CT and Spirituality...Do they relate?

I was recently listening to a religious lecture on spirituality. The lecturer talked about how the mind is constantly thinking and how one needs to stop this thinking and to be in complete control of the mind if one wants to attain complete spirituality or attain a higher level of spirituality. The lecturer talked about cognitive psychology and the ego and superego, with the human soul being the super ego and the mind being a sort of an id. The constant battle takes pleace between the nafs and the spirit. ANd most of us are controlled by our nafs (the mind). In order to be closer to God, ones' spirit needs to overtake the thoughts of the mind.

While listening to this, I realized what does CT have to say about this? We have never really discussed Spirituality in class as the spirit seem to be the opposite of the mind. Does this mean that if one is spiritual, he is void of critical thinking, or is it the one who is spiritual has the most control over his thinking? Also, the lecturer talked about being in such control over the mind that it stops thinking thoughts which are irrelevant, thinking of the future for example. He talked about staying in the present. Does critical thinking thus stop the spiritual growth?

Something interesting..

So I came across this page which is a fun quiz that assesses whether one is a critical thinker or not.. I hope you all will check it out..

http://www.criticalthinking.com/company/critical_thinker_quiz.jsp

What should one do in case of panic attacks?

When we talk about problems in critical thinking, we are taught to analyze our problems calmly, ask questions, makes assumptions, collect information, draw out conclusions and tentative conclusions and follow certain point of views/ consider certain point of views.

A question  popped in my head while going through notes and over burdening myself, How will I study all of these in such little time? What if I fail? What will I do? How will i do? and at the particular point my throat went dry and I  felt the world spinning around me and I realized I've managed to freak out and no matter how much I try figuring out the problem I'll keep on feeling scared and eventually fail.

I overcame it in my own way ..(.i.e by having some coffee and sleeping for a bit) but what should one do in case of  such panic attacks? specially as college students I'm sure all of us go through such dilemmas everyday, and critical thinking doesn't come in that easy, freaking out feels easier.

Critical Thinking and Suicide...

I have another question to put. There's a person, who don't know anything about CT, can he operate CT without knowing it, if he is not aware of the skill of using them in proper way. Lets suppose, last year one of the student of LUMS commited suicide and the genuine reason on record given was he getting low grades.

One thing is quite obvious, it is the mental pressure that he couldn't handle. He must have other options/alternatives to deal with this internal conflict, He must have visited his teachers and friends for counselling, He must have changed his study tactics to get better grades...this struggle of getting into the better option and using it, is it CT ??

If Yes, If he was apply CT in his personal problems, Can he reach to the better conclusion ??

Can anyone do this, without knowing this skill of learning CT.

How do i analyze myself?

Sir i wanted to ask that what i understood as the first step towards critical thinking is analyzing yourself, but how do i know what is right and what is wrong? To answer this i will have to compare myself to my surroundings and to other people which means before analyzing myself i try to think over them, which ends up into a mess from where to begin...i am confused.... Help needed

A video about Critical Thinking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLPL5p0fMg&feature=related

I don't understand what they mean by SKEPTICISM here. It seems to be different than what we did in class. How can we remove skepticism from our thinking?

Thought this video was interesting and worth the watch.

The animations are cute. 


http://www.slideshare.net/zaid/introduction-to-critical-thinking

The Problem of duality of thoughts ....

Sir, I don't understand when you say 'we control our thoughts', because My thoughts about myself are not entirely my own, My friends, people around me has told me about my strengths and weaknesses, through their appreciation and criticism, This means 'I only think in the direction, where others people lead me', I began to think about my writing skills, when my teachers, friends and relatives praised my skills, I began to think about my problems in my nature when my friends are angry at me, when they are frustrated.

Does this mean we only behave as people want us to ?
Where is my original thought in this process, because I see 'my thoughts' as the part of other peoples thoughts who are the indicators for my self-awareness and development.