Critical and Creative Thinking
Critical and creative thinking is regaining its popularity in the global education scene. This resurgence in popularity can be attributed to the demands of the evolving economic, political, social and technological world in the 21st century. The competitiveness of the global market demands corporations to constantly innovate. To do so, corporations need employees who are able to think critically and creatively.
Barren of natural resources, Singapore depends on its human population for economic survival. Education then becomes a key instrument in promoting the state’s economic development. In 1959, the Ministry of Education issued a report, asserting that, ‘the government’s education policy is designed to equip the youth of the State with requisite skills, aptitudes and attitudes for employment in industry’, and it has not changed since then. So, as we move into the 21st century, the government has termed critical and creative thinking as skills that all students should develop within themselves. The education system acts an agent to instill such skills in the younger generation.
The objective of this paper is to discuss the possibility of facilitating the development of critical and creative thinking among students in the current Singapore education system. So, we shall begin this paper by introducing the concepts of critical and creative thinking. Next, we shall study factors in the current Singapore education system that influence the development of critical and creative thinking among students. Following that, we shall describe strategies that need to be in place, or removed, to facilitate the development of thinking. Michael Scriven and Richard Paul define critical thinking as the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action
Barren of natural resources, Singapore depends on its human population for economic survival. Education then becomes a key instrument in promoting the state’s economic development. In 1959, the Ministry of Education issued a report, asserting that, ‘the government’s education policy is designed to equip the youth of the State with requisite skills, aptitudes and attitudes for employment in industry’, and it has not changed since then. So, as we move into the 21st century, the government has termed critical and creative thinking as skills that all students should develop within themselves. The education system acts an agent to instill such skills in the younger generation.
The objective of this paper is to discuss the possibility of facilitating the development of critical and creative thinking among students in the current Singapore education system. So, we shall begin this paper by introducing the concepts of critical and creative thinking. Next, we shall study factors in the current Singapore education system that influence the development of critical and creative thinking among students. Following that, we shall describe strategies that need to be in place, or removed, to facilitate the development of thinking. Michael Scriven and Richard Paul define critical thinking as the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action