Critical thinking is what everyone is talking about right now. Various trainings, lectures, courses devoted to critical thinking are gaining a large audience.   Unfortunately, standard school very often suppresses children’s ability and desire to think critically. Children are usually not allowed to doubt the words of the teacher and the information in the textbooks, they are forbidden to show individuality, ask awkward questions and so on. They are not given the choice of self-realization since childhood. Parents and teachers from an early age impose their opinion, which confuses the child on the way to his self-development. This is what most children face today, and our parents have faced it. Sometimes, we forget that our brain is not a garbage can, in which we put the information we do not need and imposed thoughts. We must clearly filter the information we are given and decide whether to keep it to ourselves or not.

The development of CT is important for both children and adults, because in a world where there is an information war, it is important to be able to recognize information, analyze sources and motives, make informed decisions. During the development of information technology, the ability to professionally search for the necessary information, the ability to analyze, evaluate and apply it is valued. Critical thinking skills allow you not to drown in the information avalanche, not to be manipulated, help to make informed decisions and defend them. Critical thinking helps in finding new ways to solve problems.

The development of critical thinking involves the formulation of learning objectives by modeling problem situations. For this purpose, didactic materials should be used, with the help of which students have the opportunity to get acquainted with the principles, strategies and procedures of critical thinking. The educational content within the development of critical thinking is presented in the form of problem tasks, meaning that the first goal is achieved by transforming the conditions that are set. Any task must contain a contradiction. Therefore, solving such a problem is impossible with the involvement of only already acquired knowledge. The student must think, look for connections and evidence.

The development of critical thinking contributes to the acquisition of skills to set and solve problems, which is currently one of the most pressing issues in the age of labor intellectualization. The educational process, which focuses on the needs of the child and is based on these needs, educates a person who is able to solve problems using various methods, combining the already acquired knowledge and experience with new information. Intellectual human activity provides technical and social progress, development of cities, countries, the world, and therefore the future depends on the level of development of the mental potential of mankind.

The main task that every modern teacher should set himself or herself to teach how to consider critically, and therefore to solve extraordinary, creative, complex tasks, to think independently and work in a team, to hear the opinion of others and to be heard, how to develop second (higher) order thinking, which is called critical thinking.

What are the methods of developing critical thinking?

• Ask questions, and do not take for granted all that is offered; understand what you really need.

• Look for evidence to support the information; sometimes you may seem picky.

• Accumulate knowledge and expand the worldview; always take something useful for yourself.

So, we are what we feed our brain, so we need to filter everything we put into it.