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 with John Chaffee, Ph.D. @www.thinkingworld.com |
About The Thinker's Way
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In our present culture a great deal of time, money, and effort is spent seeking to improve our health, condition our bodies, and better our personal appearance. But according to John Chaffee, Ph.D., a humanities professor at the City University of New York, we often neglect the most important ingredient : our ability to think and reflect, to understand our past and create our future which he characterizes as the core of who we are. As Chaffee points out, "When we live our lives unreflectively, simply reacting to life's situations and not trying to explore its deeper meanings, then our lives have diminished value."
In The Thinker's Way: 8 Steps to a Richer Life Chaffee, who is also Director of the New York Center for Critical Thinking & Language Learning, provides the knowledge, guidance, and practice needed to elevate our thinking abilities to an optimal level. This unique exploration of critical thinking, and the means to achieve it, holds the key to living a life which is creative, professionally successful, and personally fulfilling. Chaffee writes, "Developing the capacity to examine and refine your thinking process to "think critically" initiates a process that transforms the way you view yourself and conduct your business in the world. You will learn to live your life thoughtfully, insightfully, creatively The Thinker's Way." Each chapter of The Thinker's Way focuses on one of the eight steps to a richer life:
The Thinker's Way concludes with a chapter that helps us weave the threads of the eight steps into an intelligent life philosophy. Throughout this unique study, Chaffee underscores the transformations that are possible when we expand our thinking. He writes, "By exploring your thinking process, and using it in carefully designed activities, you can develop it into a powerful, sophisticated tool that will enrich all dimensions of your life." Chaffee seamlessly blends Thinking Activities into each chapter. Based on purposeful questions, these exercises provide us with an opportunity to think and then reflect on our own thinking process in order to refine it. Chaffee writes, "Although reading about effective thinking can provide useful background information, there is no substitute for actually doing it." He also concludes each chapter with a self-evaluation quiz to guide our choices as we shape the "critical thinker" we want to be. |