Critical Thinking and its Benefits

Critical thinking has become an important aspect of thinking for people in all walks of life. But have you ever thought about why has it become so important and how beneficial it is for you in life? Before we move ahead in knowing its benefits let us first understand what is critical thinking all about!

Critical thinking is a systematic way of analyzing and evaluating any matter or subject in order to form a judgment. This is an intellectual process that involves many skills in order to apply it successfully. This process when performed in a disciplined manner has its own benefits.

Critical thinking has many benefits for our daily work and the same is seen through the results and favorable outcomes. Some of the important benefits of critical thinking are listed below:

1. Refines creativity: In a research study amongst educators around the world, it was found that nurturing creativity in students was the most important skill that children need to thrive beyond academics. Critical thinking in academics, marketing, business, IT sector, multinational companies, or in any modern workplace, heavily relies on one’s ability to be creative. 
2. Improves decision-making: Critical thinking helps you to make decisions confidently and independently. It helps you to know your choices and choose them wisely. Especially when it comes to students while making decisions about their career, or while making a career move, it is crucial to make quick decisions here.
3. Improves research skills: Critical thinking is a master key to unlocking research-based studies successfully. For any research study, a researcher has to follow certain steps that include observation, analysis, evaluation, and experimenting with every aspect in detail for a better result. Critical thinking will refine and improve research skills and help one master them through practice.
4. Improves learning: Critical thinking opens a wide range of avenues about a particular subject. It provokes you to learn about new information, new ideas, and like-minded personalities. It aids self-improvement and trains our minds to think in a structured and disciplined way. Through research, it has been found that critical thinking improves academic performance. Further, it helps to justify our goals, have clarity about them, and work accordingly.   
5. Stimulates curiosity: Critical thinking encourages and stimulates curiosity. It has been seen that critical thinkers never stop asking questions and enjoy exploring all the sides and facts of a particular matter. They just do not take anything at face- value. Because of this curious nature, opportunities to apply critical thinking are all around them most of the time. They are always on the lookout to apply their best thinking capabilities in any situation. This desire to think critically about the simplest of situations itself gives a constructive outcome. This makes one happy, more confident, and ready to solve the next situation.  
6. Enhances problem-solving ability: Problem-solving is the principal key required to get adapted to changes and face challenges in life. Developing critical thinking skills in early academics prepares students to face complex matters in their life. Students who can think critically can easily get over complex challenges and have the capacity to engineer solutions for their problems. It has been found that critical thinkers have a problem-solving instinct within them. This instinct within them thereby helps them make independent, confident, and successful individuals in their future.

Critical thinking is very important to us in all walks of life. It must be practiced in your daily routine so that it becomes a part of your personality.  

Resources to enhance critical thinking abilities in kids are few and limited. One of them are my workshops and worksheets which are designed to increase critical thinking and logical deduction skills in kids. Having had the exposure to coaching kids from US and UK which have extensive reasoning curriculum from Grade 1 onwards, these activites are created in line with the standards in international schooling boards. While there are no exams on reasoning for school kids in India, the very fact that these activities are included in the international schooling system means that they are essential for a holistic education learning experience for kids. Reasoning is an established medium to enhance IQ and now with the advent of resources which were not there during our times, we can give our children a much superior quality of learning and development in their holistic years.

Take a look at some of the sample activities you will find in my worksheets for Grade 1, 2 and 3 which can be bought from here.

Would love to hear your views on the importance of critical thinking and reasoning for kids in the comments section.