Jude Chudi Okpala

1. How do you teach or model applied critical thinking?

I engage students in applied critical thinking through thought-experiments and case-analyses. In doing so, I lead students to engage a problem that requires a solution; we do that through analysis of characters in my Global Literature class or through examination of a concrete ethical problem in business operations in my Ethics class.  In any of those situations, the goal has always been a development of an understanding and solution based on convincing arguments.

2. Why do you think applied critical thinking is important in your domain or role?

My disciplinary turf is the Humanities, which is generally seen as disciplines that explore what it means to be human.  One of the classical definitions of human beings is “rational animal.” In my role as a teacher in the Humanities, I foster that definition with the belief that any adequate human existence is an encounter with “reason,” hence thinking; in this context, “critical” functions only as a descriptor for that kind of thinking that pursues and exposes the truth.  In a world where we have diverse humanities, not just Eurocentric humanities, “applied critical thinking” has a special purpose of showing diversities in truths, of relegating “universalism” for a pluriversal nature of understanding.

3. Can you share a story where quality applied critical thinking was key to your success?

I have had the opportunity to have taught several courses across different disciplines.  In teaching these classes, I wondered about the curricula, which were not really historically true.  I found out as well that students’ preexisting knowledge supports the curricula.  As such, they believed that teaching the courses as they were supported and maintained their reality.  Of course, that’s the problem I had to solve.  I surveyed students about the important texts and perspectives excluded from the curricula.  They knew nothing or very little about them.  I felt it was rather a responsibility to revise the courses.  So, I sought permission to revise them by introducing texts and perspectives that were excluded and thereby rebuilt the courses and led students to consider perspectives that challenged and/or were contrary to their worldviews.  I knew the revision was successful when some of the students said that they have never heard of what I introduced.  When we speak of Renaissance, I know we think of Pico de Mirandolla, Shakespeare; we can also think of Caliban and Sycorax.  Likewise, when we think of religion, we must go beyond Abrahamic religions popularized in the West.

4. How do you use critical thinking in other areas of your life outside of RIT? And any last critical thoughts?

I do not see much distinction.  My encounter with students is informed by my belief in the transcendence of the human spirit—they are not tabulae rasae; my encounter with others is based on the same belief: everyone has a narrative.  Yet, I question everything—not because it is not true, but because I want to understand.

I am critical of critical thinking, but I have come to realize that I cannot be critical of it without at the same upholding it.  I am equally critical of “reason”; “reason” has limits; it has been the foundation of years of inhumanity;  it privileges logic, which does not essentially prove truth; it can also prove falsehood by mere system of coherence.  Critical thinking is what one does when one seeks and exposes the truth. For me, “reason,” at times, is the bête noire in that process. In this connection, critical thinking needs “courage,” “prudence,” and “humility.”