This paper discusses creative and critical thinking across wide cultural and historical frameworks. It begins with an exploration of Socratic Dialectics in multiple contexts, highlighting the need for innovative views and investigative practices using Art and Culture. A major objective of this project is to use the Arts for finding the universal…

Teaching active comprehension helps students learn to ask their own questions and guide their own thinking. (MKM)

Argues that the Socratic method is inappropriate for children because it teaches them to question adult authority before they have the necessary experience and is therefore conducive to cynicism. A traditional liberal arts curriculum, combining transmission of culture with open inquiry, is preferable to attempts to teach critical thinking. (TE)

Comprehension is seen as involving meaningful communication between author and reader. Different degrees of comprehension such as literal comprehension, evaluation, reorganization, and reaction are discussed, and experience, intelligence, language development, and decoding skills are noted as important factors which influence reading…