A500.5.3.RB - Critical Thinking about Critical Thinking_ Mull Brandon

The thinking process is not only something to consider, but it is also an art. With all art, it takes a lot of practice to prefect in order to reach a master piece. Critical thinking is not a simple task that can be picked up and on the contrary it is not an easy thing to put down.

My critical thinking skills have made me pause in my everyday conversation. With the weight of what I now know about critical thinking, it makes me pause to gather and review what I want to say. I have to make sure it is exactly how I want to say it. The precision I want to convey has always been a struggle for me because of the specific and numerous terms and acronyms  in aviation. I used to sputter around my meaning and words until the recipient would understand what I meant to say. Now I think about the precision and my disciplines vocabulary that is involved in my everyday work. I still struggle but it is an ongoing practice. I want what I say to be fluent to what I mean the first time.  

The depth of the meaning of what I have to say also has had a noticeable impact on my everyday conversation. It has not just been my words that are different now. I see a new depth to what other people say. The depth of what people say has new meaning but I find it hard to not over analyze what they have to say. The lack of precision of what others have to say is something that I notice now to have impacts and consequences.

One other new skill that I have now is reasoning through something I don't understand. I work through the process of reasoning through a problem. I think it is a great asset to have the understanding of how to work through my problem without getting frustrated and being able to come to a result. Being in a field that much of what I do is left up to interpretation from the engineer can be frustrating and not always straight forward. Being able to reason out all of my problems and present a straight forward question is a huge leap in my carrier.   

Making critical thinking a long lasting art is the common practice and challenging myself with new thinking processes. The art of critical thinking comes from continual practice and a continual review. I think that critical thinking will always be an ongoing practice to me. It will be something that can be mastered but it must be practiced and improved on with new and challenging knowledge.