Summary Of Stephen Brookfield's Lecture on Creative & Critical Thinking

Stephen Brookfield is the author of "Teaching for Critical Thinking: Tools and Techniques to Help Students Question their Assumptions". It is a book in which there are many strategies and tips to help people think in a deep way. This book is taylor made for students who want to improve their learning competences through encouraging them with activities where their creativity and criticism will be required.


In the lecture he says that when a person think critically, they can:

• Identify assumptions behind thinking and actions
• Check assumptions (accuracy and validity)
• Take informed action.

Brookfield also explained the kinds of assumptions, those are:

• CAUSAL: Explains a sequence of events
• PRESCRIPTIVE:Assumptions about how things should happen and how whe should behave
• PARADIGMATIC: Framing and structuring assumptions that may look obvious.

When talking of creative thinking, it is inevitable not to relate it to he way people sort out situations, and the ones who think creatively can:

• Moving outside of habitual/ typical mental frameworks.
• Generate perspectives and responses unusual
• Able to communicate learning through a lot of modalities.

One of the most important topics he talked about was the 4 key Intellectual Traditions:

1. Analytical Phylosophy: Inductive, deductive, infeential, logical fallacies.
2. Natural Science: Hypothetical deductive method, principle of falsifiability.
3. Critical Theory: Uncovering power dynamics and ideological manipulation.
4. Pragmatism: Experimental and creative pursuit of beautiful consequences. 

Finally he talked about how Critical Thinking is learned: 

• Ending discussions
• Speaking in tongues
• Drawing and musicalizing discussions.