{"id":40006,"date":"2025-01-16T20:17:47","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T04:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=40006"},"modified":"2025-01-16T20:22:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T04:22:00","slug":"help-humility-and-critical-societies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/help-humility-and-critical-societies\/","title":{"rendered":"Help, Humility and Critical Societies"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love reading! I love reading anything from pop novels to theoretical physics, from biblical commentaries to Si-Fi.\u00a0 I have often read 3-5 different style books at a time, options for whatever mood I may be in that moment.\u00a0 Despite this love of reading, I have never enjoyed reading books that go into detail telling me what I should do.\u00a0 This is quite an obnoxious byproduct of my severe independence and desire to do it on my own and my way. Thankfully, I have learned to ask for help and have found that working together with others is a delight.\u00a0 As I began to read How to Read a Book[1]<\/a><\/u> I was immediately annoyed and went into is begrudgingly. Come on, I have been reading forever, please don\u2019t tell me how to do it.\u00a0 When I was able to put my pride aside, I came to understand that through the decades of devouring books, I had developed the first three levels of reading that Alders describes. \u00a0It feels like common sense to me after all the years of reading. The best take away was learning the concept of syntopical reading. I am excited to gain a wide breath of resources and information to go deep in understanding. One of my strengths identified by Strength Finders is Strategic, which lends way for syntopical reading to be beneficial for me.\u00a0 I like taking in a lot of information, seeing the big picture and then finding a path through to make things happen.<\/p>\n

I received a lot practical knowledge from the books on smart notes[2]<\/a> and critical thinking[3]<\/a>. I have all sorts of thoughts swirling around my head and never really thought about getting them out of my brain and onto an \u201cexternal scaffolding\u201d.\u00a0 My problems with forgetfulness and scattered thinking can be helped by putting the thoughts and information into an organized set place.\u00a0 I feel a bit embarrassed that this was such an eye opener for me.\u00a0 One of the challenges of my ADHD is that it has always been difficult to get my thoughts onto paper or a computer.\u00a0 It was much easier or more natural to talk about it. I set up Obsidian and transferred all my random notes into it.\u00a0 Seeing that graph of connections was amazing. I have found a way to write it down that works for me.\u00a0 \u00a0Ahrens writes about how motivation is an important indication of success and that it is important to follow our interests.\u00a0 I am very motived by my research and very unmotivated by writing it. Now I have a system to help me get there.<\/p>\n

Though I pride myself on my critical thinking, I must be aware that I can be intellectually arrogant towards those who are not critical thinkers and just accept what they are told, often without rationality or other points of view. \u00a0How do I be fairer in my interactions with those who don’t or will not think critically? I am open to many different views and consider them all except for those who are close-minded.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I believe many churches follow this one-sided conformity as a basis of their faith. I have read many Christian books that led in the opposite direction of critical thinking towards telling the reader what to think. Black and white thinking is so much easier, especially when the community is just trying to survive. Sometimes conservative, simple, blind faith is all that people can handle. \u00a0\u00a0Is critical thinking only for the privileged? the educated? communities that have enough?<\/p>\n

I resonated with the ideas of groupishness and critical societies[4]<\/a> that foster critical thought. My research is focused on social healing and my profession is with communities of women who have not been without basic needs, such as shelter and safety. \u00a0I used Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in my research workshops and recognized that most people of lower socioeconomic class are in those lower levels of the triangle just trying to survive. Is there a way to foster critical thought in the communities with just enough to stay alive. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how people experiencing low socioeconomic position can become critical societies that foster social healing.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Adler, Mortimer J. and Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book. New York, A Touchstone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Book, Simon & Schuster, 2014.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ahrens, S\u00f6nke. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking. North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2017.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Paul, Richard, and Linda Elder. The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools. 8th edition. Thinker\u2019s Guide Library. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Adler, Mortimer J. and Charles Van Doren,\u00a0How to Read a Book.\u00a0(<\/em>New York, A Touchstone Book, Simon & Schuster, 2014.) 43-45<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love reading! I love reading anything from pop novels to theoretical physics, from biblical commentaries to Si-Fi.\u00a0 I have often read 3-5 different style books at a time, options for whatever mood I may be in that moment.\u00a0 Despite this love of reading, I have never enjoyed reading books that go into detail telling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2980,660,3397],"class_list":["post-40006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-smartnotes","tag-adler","tag-dlgp04","cohort-dlgp04"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40006"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40022,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40006\/revisions\/40022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}