Stage 5 is the Advanced Thinker where you advance in accordance with your practice ritual. The more you practice, the greater facility at critical thinking you will have. And it goes without saying that if you discontinue practicing, regression can and will take place.
The last stage is the Master Thinker. You are skilled and insightful and this has become virtually second nature to you. You formulate well conceived ideas, opinions, and projects as a matter of habit. A perfect example of an ultimate master thinker would be Stephen Hawkings as he is not able to do anything but think all the time. Partially because of that, he hold the Isaac Newton chair of science in England, the highest possible standing one can have in the British Isles.
This article pinpoints a fundamental weakness in most people, a weakness that our public school system rarely addresses. When was the last time you had a class called thinking 101? I will be very interested to hear the actual strategies coming up to help augment the quality of my life. The question then becomes, why does your life improve when you have the ability to think clearly? In my mind, when you are able to think things out and come to reasonable conclusions on your own without having to be reliant on the various opinions swarming around you for your sole source of information, your self concept is dramatically improved which is the platform for success in life.
Source of article
Paul, Richard & Linda Elder: "Critical thinking: Nine strategies for everyday life, part I."
Journal of Developmental Education 24 (2000): 40-44.
