Where did you learn your critical thinking skills?

I lived in a arranged family that helped. I was always in survivor mode. But also my jobs and studying my degree helped too.

I never really needed to develop critical thinking skills because any thinking I do is already critical. Maybe it’s an Aspie thing?

I can’t remember a time when I did not think critically.
In late elementary school 5th? 6th? grade, one of my teachers spent time bringing in advertisements and helped us read them critically.
I still remember the discussion for: “Your money back if not completely satisfied.”
She asked us “What does this really mean? Are they returning your money if you are not satisfied with the toy? Or are they returning your money if they are not satisfied and think your money is counterfeit?”
I began to read ads differently after that.
“Don’t forget !!! Only One Day left for the President’s Month Sale at Toyota., Get a Highlander for only $139 a month!” *

Get out the magnifying glass for the page of * info. I’m just using Toyota as an example because that is the most recent one i saw. All the car manufacturers do it.

High School Geometry. Development of mathematical proofs was how I learned to organize my thoughts into a coherent argument. And it taught me how to distinguish necessary information from miscellaneous distractions.

I’ve never stopped learning or improving those skills. I started out young, my father could fix just about anything but studying it, and I always hung out with him, so that rubbed off a bit. I really learned to apply myself in my first real job after college. I had my regular work and then due to someone leaving, they asked me to take on his job for “a few months”. It turned into a year of holding down two positions, but boy I learned so so much.

Fluther

My college. We had small seminar classes where we were expected to react and express our thinking on subjects Not only did I broaden my knowledge base but I learned to think critically.

I was more or less born that way. However, it has been improved on at several stages of my life, it is kind of an endless journey in a way.

It all started when I was 6, when I was put in to religion lessons in school. I had a year of pre school from age 5 to 6, and at 6 I went to regular school, and that is where religion first showed up.

I was always a little manipulative shit of a kid, that knew how to lie and how to get other kids to do what I wanted. The saying, ’‘it takes one to know one’’, as a natual bullshitter and manipulator I instantly spotted the get out clauses and other questionable claims built in to the religion.

Later in life, at the age of 9, I went to the UK for the first time in my life, to see my grandmother. I got to see photos of my father when he was my age, and got to hear about my father in the context of being a son.

At some point in the stay with my grandmother, I realized, my father was just making it all up as he went along. Adults don’t know best, adults are just kids, on their first try at this world and life. This is when I came to question more or less all authority.

Since then, it has been a progression, of mainly observation ages 15 to 17, 20 to 22, and with a big explosion age 24 to now 30, with formal study of logic and debate and all that good stuff.

I thought I had a finely honed set of critical thinking and debating schools developed from grade school on through college. But when Internet forums came along and I started getting my ass handed back to me after making some assertion I couldn’t back up, or basing an idea of false premisses, I now realize I’m still a work in progress.

What @ETpro said. Pretty much to the letter.

What critical thinking skills?

I’ve been a sceptic and a devil’s advocate from a very young age, so have probably always been a critical thinker to some extent. I took a course in reasoning in college, but mainly as an easy credit. One of the benefits of this was that I learned the terminology for fallacies that I’d always considered annoying when they appeared in arguments… but I’ve forgotten a lot of that by now.

See my answer here, along with many others that might interest you.

M.I.T. Hang around with smart students and you learn a lot!

By having good debates with people who challenge my assumptions.

@Shippy Real life and books, which do you think helped you more?

@jerv Maybe, but they do say natural inclination only takes you so far.

@LuckyGuy Car salesmen and furniture salesmen.. Criminals don’t seem to compare.

@zenvelo Nice to hear someone got something out of school.

@Adirondackwannabe Probably didn’t get paid for both. But the say learning how to learn is priceless.

@rojo There are some people here that make you need to reevaluate things. Or realize you made assumptions.

@janbb Sounds like a good thing. An ideal situation?

@poisonedantidote Amazing how kids see through things.

@ETpro Well that reminds there is always a taller mountain. Sort of comforting and depressing at the same time.

@Seek_Kolinahr I can’t disagree.

@wundayatta Lol

@glacial Ach! The value of retention or it just wasn’t as important as it was made out to be?

@augustlan Thanks for the link I have bookmarked it! : )

@Sunny2 Gotta be smart to get there.

@mattbrowne logical answer I always thought there was more to it then that.

As a young child, most of my in-depth conversations were with the well informed, articulated friends of my parents. I read voraciously. I asked questions that could make even my rabbis eyes become crossed. I has a burning hunger for knowledge and a sharply tuned BS detector.
Had I had access to the Internet, I’d have been positively dangerous to the mental health of dim-witted adults.

The downside was that I found other children rather dull and uninteresting.