Coleridge, a poet in lake poets, divides readers into four categories-hourglass, sponge, bag for filtering soybean milk, and drudgery in gem deposit.
The hourglass reader refers to how much knowledge goes in, how much it leaks out, and nothing is left for himself, which is what we commonly call left ear goes in and right ear goes out. Sponge readers absorb everything they see, good or bad, just like sponges absorb water. What's even more frightening is that some readers, like bags for filtering soybean milk, all the good ones have flowed away, and the rest are all bad.
The truly effective way of reading and learning should be to get only the most important things like miners, that is, what we call gold rush thinking, which is also the critical thinking that people have always emphasized.
Not only in reading, but also in daily conversation, the application of critical thinking can also help us understand other people's views and realize more effective communication. Our biggest goal is to find better conclusions, better opinions and make better decisions.
The first step to cultivate critical thinking is to cultivate the ability to find correct topics and conclusions.
For example, the following passage:
Tap water is generally disinfected with chlorine, and chlorine and other substances are unfavorable to the growth of goldfish, so it is best to use tap water in pots and dry it in the sun for a day or two before using it to raise fish.
The author wants you to accept the conclusion that tap water is not suitable for directly raising fish in goldfish pond.
After finding the conclusion, we can think about all the materials supporting this conclusion and consider whether we should accept this conclusion.
You know, whether the conclusion is established depends entirely on whether the reasons provided by the author are sufficient.
To judge the sufficiency of a reason, we can first find out whether some words in a given reason are ambiguous.
For example, in Mi Meng's explosive article "Why do I support interns to drop out of school", she cited such an example as a reason:
First of all, many college classes are too nutritious and waste time and life.
Many teachers are extremely absent-minded in class.
Interns said that some teachers forgot to bring lesson plans, downloaded a courseware directly from the podium, and watched a lesson on the spot, which was really frank and too lazy to hide their perfunctory.
Some teachers, the textbooks are still 30 years ago or 50 years ago-let you travel back to the past in an instant.
The most ridiculous thing is that many teachers who teach career planning and employment guidance stay in school directly after graduation and have no real employment experience at all. The so-called "employment skills" they talked about may be borrowed from books such as 10.
The problem is not that the teacher doesn't want to be distracted, but that the whole evaluation system doesn't support his distraction.
For teachers, it is the publication of academic papers that determines their future.
Even the best class is useless.
As a result, university education is highly out of touch with the needs of the workplace, and many professional courses can neither impart knowledge and skills nor stimulate interest in learning.
More and more students don't want to attend classes for more than 30 days every month.
18-22 years old, they wasted four years.
Dropping out of school may be a way to save time and cherish life.
Let's analyze it.
Mi Meng used such words: "many" classes, "many" teachers, "some" teachers, and "many" teachers stayed in school directly after graduation. Such vague words are abstract. Is the example given here the real situation of most teachers, or are students only meeting individual teachers? The school where the students in the article are located is not taken into account. Is it a good school with high teaching level? What percentage of teachers are there many people here?
When reading articles, we often take it for granted that the meanings of these abstract words are obvious, so the author can easily substitute them into wrong logic.
In addition, in this example, Mi Meng also took an unreasonable conclusion as his argument-for teachers, publishing academic papers is the key to their future.
Even the best class is useless.
This argument that "the only goal of teachers is to publish papers, and it is useless to speak well in class" was put forward by Mi Meng himself without any reason.
As we said before, whether the conclusion is valid depends entirely on whether the reasons provided by the author are sufficient. Arguments without reason are naturally untenable.
However, Mi Meng once again put forward the conclusion on this ground-this leads to a high degree of disconnection between university education and workplace needs, and many professional courses can neither impart knowledge and skills nor stimulate interest in learning.
Is this conclusion reliable? Even the reason given above-the teacher's only goal is to publish academic papers, is a reliable reason.
So academic performance must be out of touch with the workplace? Can these professional academic knowledge really not teach students knowledge and skills? Students are not interested in learning and don't want to spend time on it. Is this the greater responsibility of the school, or the students themselves have to bear more responsibility?
I won't elaborate on these Mi Meng one by one. After careful analysis, I found that the reasons she provided were full of loopholes. Then why are so many people fascinated by her articles?
If this reason is full of emotions, it is likely to short-circuit your thinking.
Learn to ask questions and point out that anyone who wants to stimulate our emotions with words will take advantage of these feelings that may be hidden in our hearts. They can use language that can stimulate the positive emotional response to some ideas in our hearts, or they can use language that can inhibit the negative emotional response in our hearts to achieve their goals.
In many of Mi Meng's articles, he likes to use some powerful words, such as "too nutritious, wasting time and life" and "useless at all". Such emotional words can easily attract our attention and forget to judge whether the article is credible or not. My heart is full of emotions, just like watching Wolf Warriors 2. I don't think too much about whether the story is logical, but my heart is full of strong patriotism.
So remember, when we analyze an article or judge a person's speech, don't forget to avoid these emotional words and sentences.
Let's take a look at the following example:
This is a report in Xiamen Daily about "Car Letting People". The data in this paper are all obtained by the vehicle management office, and there is no problem with the data source. Therefore, according to the reporter's conclusion in the picture, drivers born after 1980s are the least qualified, and 40. 1% people are unwilling to give way to pedestrians. Compared with men and women, male drivers are more impatient, and 63% male drivers are unwilling to give way to pedestrians.
With critical thinking, what is wrong with this conclusion?
Let's analyze the conclusion of the above paragraph first. After 80s, drivers are the least qualified, and male drivers are even less patient. The reasons are all from real data, 40% and 63%. There seems to be no problem, but in fact, we can find that the data can't reflect the conclusion, because the figures don't give the total proportion of drivers and male drivers among all drivers, so can their proportion among drivers represent their overall quality?
Let's review the idea of analyzing an article again:
1, find the conclusion first.
? 2. Judge whether the reason is completely credible.
Having done these two steps, it is as simple as having critical thinking. I believe that you can become a better miner of knowledge, rather than a sponge absorbed blindly.
Always remember that whoever wants to convince you has to explain clearly. If he can't provide a clear picture of reasoning, then he has no right to force you to believe him.