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Longing to Know . . . the Heartbeat of Critical Thinking

“Thinking is an action. For all aspiring intellectuals, thoughts are the laboratory where one goes to pose questions and find answers, and the place where visions of theory and praxis come together. The heartbeat of critical thinking is the longing to know — to understand how life works” — bell hooks, 2010

I’m been impressed by the insights you’ve shared about the creativity-empathy connection and an new awareness of the cognitive aspect of empathy. You can read more in my synthesis of your blog posts that I’ve storified — Imagine If You Can: Looking Beyond the Single Story Movement toward Mutual Empathy

Let me add another layer to this creativity-empathy connection with the addition of critical thinking. Stephen Brookfield wrote the book on teaching critical thinking, literally, with his Teaching for Critical Thinking: Tools and Techniques to Help Students Question Their Assumptions He describes critical thinking as “uncovering and checking assumptions, exploring alternate perspectives, and taking informed action as a result.” Exploring alternate perspectives? Yes, empathy. There is no critical thinking without empathy.

This session brings the last of our creative aptitudes with our inquiry into meaning. Our bookcast project should help as we take a book about creativity or digital storytelling and explore the meaning we make through critical thinking and reflection. I’ve shared some bookcasts (Roots and Wings Project) but let me offer another — this one from a book club. It’s fascinating to see what each member took from the same book. It’s a really apt example of Rosenblatt’s Reader Response theory in action, not to mention a great example of play and metaphor as these students have some fun relating their ECI 521 “Teaching Literature for Young Adults” experience to being immigrants in a strange, new world.

We’ll have multiple responses to the same book within our class, and I’m looking forward to seeing the meaning that each reader makes.

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