Critical Thinking Competencies

In the next twenty years, according to latest census data, 80 percent of the world’s population will be “nonwhite.” By 2020, nearly 21% of the American population will either be Hispanic, African American, Asian, or Native American:

Population
	Percentage 1995	Percentage 2005	Percentage 2020
Whites, Non Hispanic	83%	81.3%	79%
Hispanic	10.2%	12.6%	16.3%
African American	12.6%	13.2%	14%
Asian American	3.6%	4.6%	6.1%
Native American	0.9%	0.9%	1%
Source: Workforce 2020, Hudson Institute

The number one “competency” that employers demand as they review applicants for employment is the “ability to work in a diverse environment.” Acquiring, learning, such a competency requires continuous self-improvement to develop certain intellectual traits, dispositions or virtues:

• Fair-mindedness
• Empathy
• Humility
• Autonomy
• Integrity
• Courage
• Perseverance
• Confidence in Reason

For me, the ultimate goal of “critical thinking” is to foster the development of these “traits”. My life purpose is “building true community.” Being and living the change I want to create, requires that I therefore become a “critical thinker.” To me, this also means that I must become a “creative thinker” as the two go hand-in-hand. Being a critical thinker is about assessing or judging, and being a creative thinker is about building, producing or making. I want to be able to both assess and produce, which requires imagination as well as intellectual rigor. Thus, I seek to be authentic—show up and take action that is true to myself, in alignment with my own values and beliefs and true/fair to others, in keeping with universal laws/principles. Thinking critically and creatively is becoming increasing important as change keeps accelerating in our global, complex, and interdependent world—a world that is also becoming more and more dangerous as inequity and poverty persist amidst abundance.

As a “teacher” or builder of learning communities, I hold critical/creative thinking (CCT) at the center of both learning and education. CCT has been defined as “the process of analyzing and assessing thinking with a view to improving [thinking].” (Elder, 2004) In order to accomplish this, we need to know the structures of thinking, the elements of thought, as well as the standards for thinking. Thinking can be improved by restructuring it as a result of analysis and assessment. (Ibid)

Thinking can be shallow, dishonest and based on flawed logic or it can be founded on intellectual fairmindedness. Fairminded, critical/creative thinkers are intellectually humble and empathic. They have confidence in reason and intellectual integrity and display intellectual courage and autonomy. There are also CTT competencies that focus on the elements of reasoning such as purpose, goals, and objectives; those that focus on universal intellectual standards; those that deal with barriers to sound reasoning such as egocentricity and sociocentric thought; those competencies that highlight CCT critical to learning itself; and those focusing on the specific domains or disciplines of thought such as ethical reasoning ability and skills in detecting media bias and propaganda. Each of these areas of competency must include principles of CTT, performance indicators, outcomes, and rubrics to determine the extent to which learners/students display achievement of outcomes and also the extent to which we understand and internalize the particular competence (see www.criticalthinking.org. )

(For a helpful resource see: Elder, Paul and Linda. (2006) Critical Thinking Competency Standards. The Foundation for Critical Thinking which can be found at the url above.)

Next, I intend to present the other competencies required by the nation’s employers and show how all of them are connected to CCT. More later…