The Value of Critical Thinking

In Japan, students are not very used to criticising in class. What they do is sit still, take notes, and nod. There are classes without a single question asked, and the teacher has the privilege of talking without being challenged. This happens even during seminars where students are supposed to speak up, never mind lectures.

Thus, a student more prone to critical thinking might sometimes draw surprised looks both from the instructor and classmates, because he or she would be standing out of the mass. For a student with experience of education in the West, especially in the United Kingdom, this environment may come as something bordering on absurd: how can you learn something without ever challenging things taken for granted? Only here in Japan did I face the necessity to consider the question of conformity, because it is very rare in this country to see someone challenging the conventional wisdom openly.

This raises more important questions: what is the role of critical thinking in social and political development? And it makes me think about the role of culture in development, the cultural differences between the West and Japan. Surely, this will take more than a year to explore and document, but I am more than ready to continue my observations of the Japanese society.