The First Survival Skill

Critical Thinking and problem solving

Work is no longer defined by your specialty; it's defined by the task or problem you and your team are trying to solve or the end goal you want to accomplish. Teams have to figure out the best way to get there - the solution is not prescribed.

工作渐渐的不再是被定义好的，需要个人或团队去解决一个一个的问题，拿出一个个的解决方案。

asking good questions（提出正确的问题），critical thinking（批评性思维），and problem solving（解决问题的能力）是今天社会最被看重的一种技能。

到底什么才是Critical thinking?

“ Taking issues and situations and problems and going to root components; understanding how the problem evolved - looking at it from a systemic perspective and not accepting things at face value. 

如果我们在碰到一件事情、一个状况、一个问题时，能进入到根源层面，理解这个问题可能是如何演化的，能够从系统层面去思考，并不会满足于表面问题的解决。

You have to spend the time to ask the next question. There is something about understanding what the right questions are, and there is something about asking the nonlinear, counterintuitive question. These are the ones that take you to the next level.

思考对应的是问题，能不断的提出下一个问题，本身就说明你在不断的思考，如果问题能有多角度，那其实思维就在进化。

It also means being curious about why things are the way they are and being able to think about why something is important.

保持好奇心，去探究为何事情会如此，且为什么这是重要的？

试着问自己这些问题：

What do I really need to understand about this?

What is the history?

what are other people thinking about this?

How does that all come together?

What frames and models can we use to understand this from a variety of different angles and then come up with something different?

We need to approach problems and challenges as a learner as opposed to a knower. We need to be curious versus thinking 'I know the answer.'  Yesterday's solution doesn't solve tomorrow's problem.

让自己一直保持一个学习者的身份，过去解决方案未必能解决明天的问题。

It's really tough to teach children how to think differently if they've spent ten years on one level of thinking. We need to start teaching critical thinking as soon as children are capable of abstract thinking.

如果一个孩子已经花了10年用一种方式思考，我们再尝试介入改变，会是一件特别难的事情，我们应当在孩子一开始学会抽象思考时，就开始引入批判性思维的学习。

该怎么学习批评性思维，解决问题和提出好的问题呢？

Throw out the textbooks! The answer isn't in the books. The answer is in everything but the books. Problems change and so approaches to problems need to change. We also need to rethink the accountability system. We're getting what we measure, but we're measuring the wrong things.

答案往往都不会在教科书里，问题任何时候都可能出现，对应的解决方法也是多种多样的。我们在乎那些标准，万一标准错了，那就麻烦大了。