Oh Boy, Thinking Critically

When I think about what critically thinking means, for some odd reason I picture a girl sitting at her desk in class pulling her hair out because she is thinking so hard and nothing is coming to mind, well maybe I am picturing myself, cause thinking out side of the box for me is harder than it should be. Now when I come across the definition of critical thinking I begin to realize that it consist of many different things. Critical thinking relies on reason rather than emotion and requires us to think beyond what is given and come up with the unknown. I am very good at this I suppose in life outside of English; when dealing with clues I am given and making my own opinion or judgment with them. I would not say I do it all the time; I just do it sometimes when I feel there is something I should know. Now when I get into readings and such things my mind tends to think one thousand things and stresses me out, it leaves me unable to come up with anything, sometimes I even think my own opinion is wrong. As far as analyzing goes I do not do that often either. In my English 101 course this past semester I was just introduced to it. I analyzed our Language Awareness book and also Marius, I did it every week but as far as media and politics go I don’t really care to much for all of that to pay any attention to it all though I should. I do have interactions with other people who do break everything down and look at people and situations from every angle. I may analyze my friends or people I know to try and see what they are about but other than that I have no prior knowledge to doing so. Even though I am not fond of critically thinking or analyzing I have no other choice but to get used to it and fully understand it. My career path is corrections and in many situations I am going to have to take the whole scene and break it down into many different parts and take criminals and figure out why they do the things they do. I believe I psyche myself out most of the time. It seems like it may be easy for me to analyze a crime scene rather than a novel but it is just because I am much more interested in corrections and not so much in novels. I am hoping when June roles around I will be able to analyze anything or anyone that is thrown in front of me. I do not want one thousand things running through my mind when I hear analyze or think critically. I believe this class will help me to be much more aware of the things going on around me, since I will be able to look deeper than what the eye can see and I won’t be such a lost soul anymore.