{"ops":[{"insert":"Humans face many problems caused by poor reasoning that can only be solved through critical reasoning. This has always been the case. But this doesn’t mean we need to accept things as they are when it is clear they need improving. It can be more than disheartening (indeed it can be sickening) to perceive something of the almost unlimited potential of the human species while daily witnessing poverty, ignorance, bias, prejudice, incompetence, waste, selfishness, and blatant disregard for human and animal rights and the health of the planet.\n\nTo address these problems and eventually achieve fairminded critical societies requires that people work together to embrace and advance ethical critical thinking principles. And this requires that we collectively internalize an integrated, comprehensive, universally accessible concept of ethical critical thinking.\n\nThis is a primary reason for the development of our community. At the Foundation for Critical Thinking, we have known for decades that the one- and two-day workshop in critical thinking can never transform a person into a critical thinker. People take for granted that you cannot learn to play the violin or tennis in two days. And yet we are typically asked to teach all that is important to know about theory and application of critical thinking in two, or one day, or even less. Not infrequently when we ask how much time an organization has dedicated for professional development in critical thinking, they give such responses as, “We are really excited about critical thinking; we have set aside an entire hour for your presentation.”\n\nWe know that this way of thinking, this continually giving short shrift to critical thinking and its complexities, will never build fairminded, intelligent, cultivated societies for the long run. We also know that most people need to work together to advance their learning, rather than trying to learn critical thinking on their own. Therefore, we have built our community with many opportunities for you to learn directly from our senior fellows and scholars, in our regular webinars and study groups, as well as to work through our libraries and academy activities on your own time.\n\nIf we are to develop as reasoners, any one of us, it is essential that we find and regularly interact with like-minded people seeking to advance as fairminded critical thinkers who are also studying robust theory of critical thinking and regularly applying it throughout their lives.\n\nI encourage you to frequently visit our webinars page to make sure you don’t miss any webinars or study groups led by our fellows and scholars. These provide unique opportunities to study with our international authorities on critical thinking.\n\nYou will not want to miss the January 12 webinar this week with Dr. Nosich – "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Reasoning Through a Problem Using Critical Thinking."},{"insert":"\n\nThen I hope you will join me for the February 1 webinar on "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Thinking Critically About the Earth’s Preservation."},{"insert":"\n\nYou can also view the recorded videos after each webinar, in the AV library (also found in the webinars section of the community)\n\nRead about our webinars here: "},{"attributes":{"color":"blue","link":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/webinarsAndAnnouncements.php"},"insert":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/webinarsAndAnnouncements.php"},{"insert":"\n\nRegister for the upcoming study group at our sister website here:\n"},{"attributes":{"color":"blue","link":"https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/guided-study-groups-in-the-center-for-critical-think/1382"},"insert":"https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/guided-study-groups-in-the-center-for-critical-think/1382"},{"insert":"\n\n"}]}