Written by: gfesadmin on September 17, 2012

Challenge

Critical thinking does not come naturally to everyone. How then do community leaders start the process of teaching this skill to groups such as children and adolescents who are victims of poverty and illiteracy?

Two Evolving Solutions

1.      Relationships are vital to any functional community. At one point in the USA’s history, the local church was the focal point and gathering place not only for spirituality but also for community activities. Spiritual leaders and liberal arts leaders within the local church and the community at large are needed to invest themselves through mentoring or becoming life coaches in the lower socioeconomic areas of our society to help rescue our bright-minded youth who suffer from a lack of positive role models and overexposure to the deceitful and seducing pleasures of life more commonly seen in the street life of urban America.

2.      A new vision must be cast to help these young men and women imagine life otherwise. There must be a new infusion of intentional reprogramming that develops a vision of hope, change, education, critical thinking and action. In time, the goal is to see these young people with attractive confidence and to spur on additional intellectual perseverance. To see change and renewal, a process-oriented approach is needed. As part of this process, the leader reflects on the youth’s current reality and magnifies their future potential and what they can bring to the world’s table. The leaders will have to help them see themselves beyond their present state. Often, the reason these youth possess such a limited outlook on life is that they have never known anything else, and neither have their families. Much of this process is about exposure.

Overall, the goal of critical thinking is to cultivate one’s thought process. These evolving solutions are designed to improve the mindsets of impoverished youth. Come on leaders and extend a helping hand and lead them in approaching life with a brighter horizon in view.

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