The Art of Critical Thinking 

With his rich expertise and experience, Roy Anderson enlightened the teachers on the art of critical thinking at the English Language Center, UTAS, Ibri, on 22 April 2021.

Critical thinking is the new byword in education, but what does it mean and is it being taught effectively? In this discussion, Roy explicitly presented his perspectives on why we generally fail to improve the ability of our students to think critically and what we could otherwise do to improve this skill. He stressed the need to know why the design of school has a purpose of preventing the development of this skill in being able to reason better. Roy also introduced his audience to another dimension of improving student learning. He titled itas  the art of sensitivity in awareness.

A common understanding is that a student is born with a genetic ability to learn, which can be improved through the environment they live through. The design of the school and all teaching and learning methodologies are based upon this. His explicit explanation on why this understanding of intelligence is not correct and why school learning has nothing to do with intelligence was quite convincing and impressive. He further Academic success depends on how the mind of the student, and not their brain, gain stability in the home and the class environment. If parents and teachers understood what this means, all students would get better grades in school, a better job, and control the factors in their lives.

The views shared were highly appreciated by the elite audience and the takeaways of the presentation were immensely rich. The head of ELC lauded the efforts of the professional development committee for introducing an amazing ELT professional who provided convincing solutions to the intriguing questions.

Roy Andersen is the Principal of Kingston College, Lahore and a recognised global educational expert with nearly 40 years in the development of the school system. He has a personal following of 40,000 educationalists around the world, and is much appraised for his many years of scientific research into what intelligence is, how to improve the operation of the school and how teachers can teach better.

Roy is an expert in intelligence, a specialist in Petro’s Conductive Education for disabled children and a trained Deaf and Blind teacher. He is the inventor of “The Brain Environment Complex Theory,” which presents a new concept to what intelligence is and how children learn.