Building strong minds: Path to develop critical thinking skills in Higher Education

Since the inception of mankind 10,000 years ago, the human being relied upon physical prowess to survive and sustain. This physical prowess started to be substituted partially with the coming of the agrarian age and hereon mankind. This was the inflection point for the development of civilization when the human being learnt to harvest and store food. This changed the nomadic nature of human beings’ existence and the human being settlements began to thrive. Being territorial and perpetually insecure, mankind began to create kingdoms and empires. The vastness of an empire depended on physical prowess, military power, and some strategy. The use of the brainpower acted as a multiplier to the physical and military powers of successful emperors and kings. The Governance was managed by the propagation of religious and spiritual beliefs. The story tellers of gods thrived, and the kings adorned the crown based on a dictate of the almighty supported by the head priests and other custodians of religious faiths and beliefs. The economy continued to be driven by human power and the use of mind was restricted to the court’s men. Philosophers provided the food for thought and kept the kings men busy and entertained in times of peace. Philosophers who crossed the path of religious belief were sent to the gallows even though they could prove their theories through experiments.

Some 500-600 years ago the pendulum started to swing in favour of alchemy and machines that could make work easy and enhance the military might of the kings. This led to the birth of science and religious beliefs started to sound like mumbo jumbo when challenged by scientific thought and evidence. This began the era of brain power and this escalated about 300 years ago when the Issac Newtons, Darwin, Lavoisers, Mendelevs and other great scientists started to demystify the forces of nature.

With the advent of the Industrial revolution the power shifted from the power of sword/gun to the power of garnering capital. Machines were put to work to manufacture at scale and management of resources which is purely a function of brain power came into vogue. Smart people began to hoard wealth and the physically strong people got reduced to sportsmen and entertainers. The changing lifestyles of mankind resulted in the birth of gymnasiums for maintaining fitness which in the past were used only by gladiators and warriors to perfect their fighting skills. Large scale assembly and manufacturing lines introduced the concept of division of labour and specialised skills started to enjoy a higher economic value. This transformed education delivery to create skilled workers instead of thinkers and philosophers. Scientific knowledge, ability to compute, process data and infer became the most sought-after competencies in the capitalistic society. Arts and liberal studies started to take a back seat.

With the coming of information age and growth of automation the left brain attained complete dominance and the use of right brain got reduced to creative professions. The exponential growth of internet and mobile devices enhanced the reliance of human being on readily available and accessible information. The computing ability and memory got commoditised levelling the playing field leaving very little in the power of the left brain to differentiate one individual from the other. Innovation, creativity and ability to solve problems started to emerge as the future skills for mankind. Th revival of the right brain started to become imperative.

As the power computing grew exponentially and the internet became ubiquitous, the machines began to gain intelligence threatening to replace jobs and daily sustenance of mankind. Data emerged as the new driving force for business. Data coupled with high power computing and statistical algorithms empowered the businesses to accurately predict behaviour, likes and dislikes of the consumers leading. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning started to power machines and processes putting many jobs at risk. The exponential rise in dependence on machines, data, computers, and intelligent algorithms took its toll by impacting the mental health of mankind. The velocity of change reduced half-life of knowledge and skill, making redundancy commonplace and enhancing the volatility and uncertainty in human life.

The dependence on technology and devices to think and do has reduced the human being to be just an operator or user of technology. It is important for education providers to take cognizance of this emerging reality and develop curriculums for retraining our minds to think and training our bodies to do. These abilities will secure the human being’s dignity which is essential for survival of humans. Curriculums must encourage philosophical engagements, creative expression, speed comprehension and speed computing to preserve the basic thinking faculties of human beings. These are basics and form the core for critical thinking, problem solving, decision making and development of new knowledge. We need to build mental gyms to help humans gain mental fitness and such gyms are best provided inside curriculums developed by education providers. An able mind is necessary to build a strong mind.