Ways of thinking

Topic 1: Critical Thinking vs. Creative Thinking
(a continuation of yesterday's post)

While I have the challenge of doing both creative writing and AP style news writing this semester, there's more to the situation. Curious? OK, here it is...I have basically two types of classes this semester: Classes that require critical thinking (World Religions, Principles of Entrepreneurship, Intro to Web Design and Symphony Orchestra) and classes that require creative thinking (Survey of Children's Literature, Creative Writing, Web Design and Symphony Orchestra). I'll bet you noticed that two of my classes overlap into both categories. It's true. I have two classes that definitely apply to the critical thinking category and two others that certainly belong to the creative thinking one. But then there are the other two, the odd-balls, the ones that belong in both categories. In Intro to Web Design we have to think creatively to design our Web sites, but then when we start using Dreamweaver to turn the designs into HTML, we use critical thinking. In orchestra we use critical thinking to read the notes and understand all the things contained in the music, but then we have to interpret what we read from head-knowledge into feeling and passion. Of course, someone could argue that both creative and critical thinking are required for every class. Yeah, yeah, we all know that, but it's not really what I'm trying to say in this post. I'm just saying it's intriguing to see such an equal split between my six classes and interesting how I have to adjust my thinking before I step into each classroom. What makes it all the more challenging is that my critical-type thinking classes are pretty much perfectly alternating with my creative-type thinking classes. It's just kind of a weird phenomenon I've noticed so far this semester.

And, in other news, I just got done interviewing a Collegedale city commissioner at his house. I think that's a rather an unordinary claim to fame and one that I'll probably never get to have in my own hometown. The interview went really great, so I'm excited about that. Can you tell?!