CRITICAL THINKING VERSUS CREATIVE THINKING IN NIGERIAN SCHOOLS: Panacea to Intellectual Hypocrisy, Closed Mindedness and Egocentricity in Social Studies Classroom

Abstract

An important task of schooling not only in Nigerian schools but all over the world is to heighten the influence of teaching on pupils mental development. Nigerian teachers are used to handling the subjects in the curriculum in the conventional ways in a way of staying within the borders of what is known. There is the need to venture into areas that are relatively unknown. In Psychology and didactic literature, emphasis is on the development of pragmatic, visually active, verbal and logical (reflective, theoretical) thought. Therefore, it is necessary to pose a principle of harmonious development rather than the one that hyperbolizes any single approach. This principle increase ability to reach conclusion and to systematize knowledge as well as increase the durability of one ‘knowledge. This assures ease in the recall of knowledge which needs to solve a specific problem or task. This principle is seen in creative and critical thinking. While creative thinking figures in the resolution of a fundamentally new task that does not emerge from what is always known, but requires transformation outside the boundaries of what is already known, critical thinking is purposeful and reflective and has the capacity to evaluate skills fully and detect errors easily, without compromising. It have the capacity to detect hypocrisy manipulation, dissembling and bias as this is central to both personal success and national needs. Critical thinking and creative thinking go beyond informal logic and includes assessment of beliefs and identification of prejudice, bias, propaganda, self-deception, distortion misinformation as well as focusing more on developing intellectual traits. One’s thinking may be unclear in accurate, irrelevant, narrow, shallow, illogical and trivial. Also one may be intellectually arrogant, intellectually lazy or intellectually hypocritical and close minded and hence creative and creative thinking if properly employed in school by competent teachers can address all the flaws mentioned above.