E. Doroshenko

COMMENTS ON CREATIVE AND CRITICAL THINKING

“Researchers can only be restricted by how far out of the box they can think”.
Dr. J. Victor Garcia-Martinez

What makes a human being so unique? Many would agree that, together with the ability to pollute the environment, it is thinking. It won’t be a mistake either to say that every human is supposed to be unique in his own way, that is, possess individual qualities, and, on a more general level, to be a person possessing a personality.

Generally, uniqueness of any kind needs means of expressing itself, otherwise it certainly wouldn’t be recognized as such; in a human society such means is the language. However, to be able to express something, we need to have that something, that is, we have to gain the idea first, and then put it into words; but definitely, there exist many kinds of ideas, and somehow we don’t mix them.

To my mind, it happens because thinking as a process has many aspects and sides, both “known” and “unknown”; for now, we can point out critical and creative thinking, as the subject of this article. For me, “critical” stands for “objectiveness” and “evaluation”, and “creative” is “expressing oneself” and “contributing”, and this is exactly why critical and creative thinking is the inseparable part of learning as the process of acquiring knowledge.

I would also associate them with Yin and Yang: on the one hand, it’s necessary to estimate the object of the research in the correct and objective way, and on the other hand, there is a need in expressing the opinion, making a conclusion and sharing with others. But of course, to do this efficiently, one has to follow widely-accepted logical patterns and use adequate verbal means, because otherwise nobody would understand his ideas; and yet, one needs to have his own way of seeing and interpreting things, because only in this way he can contribute to the life of the society.

On a psychological level, creative thinking can also help us understand who we are, but critical thinking is supposed to keep us from over- or underestimating.

However, valuable as they are, developing thinking skills – that is, logical operations of which the human brain is capable, i.e. synthesis, analysis, etc. – should not become the sole goal of the teaching-learning process. Both teachers and students should remember that these are only the tools for, let’s say, acquiring the information in order to feel more at home in the rapidly changing world.

It also should be noted that such development is not an easy task, and it cannot “feed” only on the outward stimulation – that is, teacher’s inquiries, including both questions and, possibly, “threats”. The momentum for this process, to my mind, is the interest of the students themselves, their involvement; in other words, there must be an irresistible need for learning a certain thing, that will make the student gain the necessary skills faster and more efficiently. Thus, the content meant for discussions and written projects must be particularly well-chosen by the teacher.

As it is widely accepted, one of the oldest and most efficient tactics of developing critical (or analytical) thinking is questions and answers. The more or less “pure” Sciences which are meant to develop this ability (and which seem to me again more or less “pure” training) is Mathematics and Logic. I think, most of us have at least once tried IQ tests, or logical tasks in order to measure abilities, especially in primary school.
For some of us – like me, for example – it was a real torture.
Let’s take a very simple task:
”There’s an old man who needs to transport his belongings across the river. His belongings include: a wolf, a goat and some cabbage. He also has a small boat, in which he can transport only 2 of all his possessions, for example, the goat and the wolf, or the goat and the cabbage. Which 2 things can the old man transport firstly?” The true answer, of course, is the wolf and the cabbage, it’s so very obvious!

But for me this task was impossible to solve, because:
- the wolf can eat the old man on the way, never mind the cabbage.
Older, wiser and better people would then recommend me to imagine the wolf in a cage;
but again, impossible, because:
- if the wolf is being transported in a cage, then it makes no difference if we take either the cabbage, or the goat first, because the wolf is “neutralized” anyway.

I must also confess, that I wasn’t articulate enough to express my doubts in a good way (I think, I was 6 or 7 at that time), and so, possibly, I was considered “underdeveloped”… I’m not saying that all such tasks are as “controversial” as that, but to my mind, as teachers, we should sometimes be more considerate to what our students are trying to tell us, or why they can’t cope with a “very simple” task, or why they are such “slow thinkers”!.

Foreign language learning, unlike Sciences, is, in my opinion, a truly great “exercise” in developing both critical and creative thinking. It needs critical thinking, because any language, on the one hand, consists of some rules (grammar), and on the other hand, expression needs certain patterns (lexis: word-combinations, fixed phrases). In order to understand “how it works”, the student has to be “analytical” enough; but when he starts to actually speak, he must always keep in mind the question of “What do I actually want to say?”, and firstly, apply the rules in a creative way, and secondly, “play” with the irregularities he has learnt, or heard somewhere, or create his own.
Language, of course, is a very flexible thing. Old English used to be very much “synthetic”, while its contemporary version is quite “analytical”, which means the complete change of grammatical paradigm. Also, it’s not only that teachers here always have the dilemma of “according to the textbook” vs “according to how natives really speak” teaching. (And I dare say, it’s not merely about “exam” vs “real life” thing, it’s much deeper than that!) It’s also about forming the “thinking within the language” logic, and getting the student adapted to the game with changing rules.

According to Muhammad Kamarul Kabilan, the problem-posing methodology (based on question-answer approach) is quite efficient in language classrooms [http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kabilan-CriticalThinking.html].

During the discussion, “the learners should experience five steps of the problem-posing methodology (Nixon-Ponder 1995):

1. Describe the content of discussion
2. Define the problem
3. Personalize the problem
4. Discuss the problem
5. Discuss the alternatives of the problem” [Ibid]

The role of the teacher as someone responsible for the teaching process generally, is crucial; so, concerning point 1, it’s the teacher’s task to make it interesting and stimulating, either by choosing well, or by interpreting it originally; point 2 should be pre-defined by the teacher as, for example, “social”, “cultural”, “moral”, “psychological”, etc., especially if the issue is complicated;
point 3 makes the teacher move on from the “content” to “individuals” (students) and ask them;
point 4 is about following the discussion carefully, avoiding extremes; and finally, point 5 asks for “collective” (teacher-students) thinking, and finding “other realities”.
Generally, Foreign Language students are supposed to be more or less ready for the question-answer tactics, because they have had some of it during their Literature classes, and in their native language. Besides, this is what most written tasks are about, such as essays, summaries and compositions. Thus, they are supposed to be able to distinguish between historical, social, moral, spiritual, etc. issues and corresponding types of questions; however, before discussing a large piece of literature in a foreign language (like a novel, for example), it may be useful for the teacher to define – together with the students – its main themes and ideas. (Besides having purely didactic value, it may help to see the cultural differences in class.)

Concluding, to give an example of what I have been speaking about, I would like to refer to 2 today’s best-selling novels by Khaled Hosseini “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns”. Very generally speaking, both of them deal with the issue of people’s destiny against the background of modern history of Afghanistan, the former touching upon the problem of emigration, and the latter describing the position of women in Afghan society. More detailed information about the author and the books can be found at: http://www.khaledhosseini.com.

To my mind, both these books are “serious” and captivating enough to become authentic content for discussion in class with Upper-Intermediate – Advanced level students; at the end of “The Kite Runner” there is also the “Readers Guide”, which contains questions for discussion, such as:

“1. The novel begins with Amir’s memory of peering down an alley, looking for Hassan, who is kite running for him. As Amir peers into the alley, he witnesses a tragedy. The novel ends with Amir kite running for Hassan’s son, Sohrab, as he begins a new life with Amir in America. Why do you think the author chooses to frame the novel with these scenes? Refer to the following passage: ‘Afghans like to say: Life goes on, unmindful of beginning, end… crisis or catharsis, moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan of kochis [nomads].’ How is this significant to the framing of the novel?” [1]

The key word in this question is “framing”, which makes readers think about the composition of the novel, and addresses them to the literary side of the content; another question is mostly “historical”, and it can be used as a task for a written project:
”11. Discuss how the ever-changing politics of Afghanistan affect each of the characters in the novel.” [2]

And the last one can be defined as social\ethical:

“19. Discuss the difference between Baba and Ali and between Amir and Hassan. Are Baba’s and Amir’s betrayals and similarities in their relationships of their servants (if you consider Baba’s act a betrayal) similar or different? Do you think that such betrayals are inevitable in the master\servant relationship, or do you feel that they are due to flaws in Baba’s and Amir’s characters, or are they the outcome of circumstances and characters?” [3]

The similar “Readers Guide” for “A Thousand Splendid Suns” can be found at: http://www.khaledhosseini.com/hosseini-books-splendidsuns.html

It can be very useful for university students, doing a course in Linguistics, for example, at the post-reading\discussing stage to analyze the drawbacks of the existing Russian translation of “The Kite Runner” [4], and possibly, come up with their own variants of translation of difficult passages.

References:

[1] Hosseini, Kh. (2005). The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead Books, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 373

[2] Ibid, 376

[3] Ibid, 379

[4] Хоссейни, Х. (2008). «Бегущий за ветром». Москва, издательство «Фантом Пресс»