CRITICAL THINKING

 

 

Unlike most high schools, students are not made to memorize information for a test and then forget it. Students are given problems or ideas and are asked to find hate answers or make connections. This type of learning installs students with the knowledge that they will remember and be able to apply to life situations. Having the skill of critical thinking also allows students to be able to analyze things and create new solutions.

 

 

In New Tech there is a lot of critical thinking that happens. Most of the work is based on people critical thinking. I feel that I am very able to take different ideas and different things learned and put them together to find a solution or idea that connects.

 

I have included a response journal from my American Studies class. I feel this journal demonstrates my critical thinking because these journals are formed based solely on critical thinking.

 

Prompt: In a well-written essay determine whether or not Menken's "Last Words" is a well-written essay. Did he answer the questions it seemed important for him to answer?

 

Answer: Mencken attempts to prove many things in his essay but just as he believes nothing comes from democracy nothing comes of his essay. He states that democracy is idiotic but never brings a solution to this idiocy. In order got his essay to be good he would have to create a solution to the problem he brings about. He does answer the questions of why is democracy idiotic in complete. Mencken feels that democracy is derived from schemes that are lies. He also emphasizes the “mob man” and its function in the world. Democracy is only popular because each person feels power in controlling important aspects in the world. Mencken also believes that democracy is self-devouring. This means that the whole ideas of it tend to be discarded at any time of tension. Another example he adds to this is that democracy rids itself of the things it is supposed to love.
A large fault with Democracy that Mencken believes is that it contradicts itself. His first example of this is, Mencken sees it as everyone has independence and freedom until there is a problem. This is still true today. We all want to believe that we have freedom, but since our national security has been threatened he have to lose all of our freedoms to enter a plane. Being in America our whole system is run off of the Bill of Rights. Mencken shows that people are being jailed for reading this document and this is contradictory because it is saying follow these rules but then if followed too much there will be a punishment. This wouldn’t be thought logical but it happens all the time. This is as if someone voices his or her freedom of speech or his or her freedom to peacefully assemble.
When approaching the question of what would be a better government then democracy, Mencken does not answer this completely. This is another part in his not providing a solution. He goes on in his essay about how democracy is bad and people who believe in it are idiots. Mencken says that democracy is “…wasteful, extravagant, and dishonest”. He also believes that every other form of government is bad for men of labor and virtue. For someone who talks a lot about the faults of a government he should include what he believes would solve the problem. This is Mencken being hypocritical because he likes to complain about things but not work to solve them. For I believe that if things were how he would want them he would have nothing to talk about.