Critical Thinking: Misunderstood And Underappreciated

Critical thinking is a term that is both misunderstood and underappreciated. Most people have a general understanding of what critical thinking is as the most common definition would be, carefully thinking through any situation through before coming to a conclusion. When in reality the term critical thinking means giving reasoned and fair-minded consideration to evidence, conceptualizations, methods, contexts, and standards in order to decide what to believe or what to do.
As I stated earlier the term critical thinking is underappreciated because people don’t realize that they use it every day. Any decision a person makes involves critical think whether they want to or not. I believe that critical thinking is an essential part of life and that the more you develop it the better off you will be. In law enforcement critical thinking can mean the difference between life and death. Being able to look at any situation from several different perspective and reached a sound and concise conclusion is a skill that is important for anyone, but even more so for law enforcement.
Over the past 9 years I have tried my best not to diverge from that path, I said no to drugs and parting and other situations that might get me in trouble with the law. In retrospect saying no in those situations was one of the easiest things to do. But one of the hardest decisions I have had to make in my life was attending school at Lethbridge College. Saying no to drugs and provocative behaviour was easy, but leaving my family just seemed unthinkable. Lethbridge College was not my only choice I could have gone to Grant McEwan, Mount Royal or even Concordia, all of which are substantially closer to