Read and defend your assessment of where the average American falls on Elder and Paul's 6 levels of Cognitive Development.

Linda Elder and Richard Paul argue for a 6 level progression, each of which involves 5 defining variables that help to distinguish each level from the others. 1. Unreflective thinker - 2. Challenged thinker - 3. Beginning thinker - 4. Practicing thinker - 5. Advanced thinker - 6. Accomplished thinker.

Each of these levels are then defined by the following variables: 1. Its defining feature, 2. The principal challenge, 3. Knowledge of thinking, 4. Skill in thinking, and finally, 5. Relevant intellectual traits. So let's break these down one by one so that we can understand the various levels and maybe determine where we currently find ourselves.

The Unreflective Thinker:The unreflective thinker is like an automaton, a robot. They do not really understand the importance of thinking nor do they realize the problems created in their lives by not thinking. We might say that they are sleepwalking through life, or are simply stuck in some action/reaction loop. The unreflective thinker is barely aware of their thinking and almost never breach into the realm of higher level, abstract thinking or problem solving that is essential for modern 21^st century life. Although they may have developed some thinking skill they usually don't apply them consistently and consequently are guilty of bad thinking habits like confirmation bias, inconsistency, and potentially even hypocrisy or prejudice. Ultimately, they are mostly oblivious to the fact that intelligence exists and varies from person to person, at least in a practical or personal sense.

The Challenged Thinker:The challenged thinker begins to become aware of the role that thinking plays in their lives, and the effects of bad thinking. Meaning, that they realize that there is such thing as good and bad thinking, and that bad thinking has negative consequences; but not necessarily how this plays out in their immediate lives, and especially not what they can do about it. In other words, they have become aware that there are over-arching concepts or ideals that affect our values and perceptions, but do not possess the wherewithal to assess let alone improve their own concepts or ideals. Ultimately, then, here we see the dawning of the realization that there are people who know more than 'me:' in other words, the first semblance of intellectual humility.

The Beginning Thinker:The beginning thinker, although this might initially seem counter-intuitive as this the third level, is where the thinker first actually begins to take control of their thinking, moving beyond conditioning and mere stimulus response, to at least minor analysis of their beliefs and thoughts over several aspects of their lives. These thinkers have realized that there are flaws or errors in some of their thinking but generally do not have the wherewithal to completely understand the deeper issues/problems, let alone how to fix them. They are a bit better at identifying their errors than the previous, but are nonetheless inconsistent. Basically, they have acknowledged a problem but don't fully comprehend it or have a solution, and only catch them occasionally.

The Practicing Thinker:The practicing thinker develops some good thinking habits while also getting better at identifying and thus reducing their bad habits. Furthermore, they not only produce a systematic approach to assessing their thinking, but also the ability to reflect on their system. They have realized the importance of having a clear, systematic approach to thinking and reflecting, including various traits like consistency, clarity, accuracy, relevance, etc. Ultimately, they have become more open to the faults in their thinking, to the idea that thinking can be improved, and then put more effort into consistently using the good habits while minimizing the bad thinking.

The Advanced Thinker:The advanced thinker is getting proficient at the good habits, minimizing the bad, and understands that critical thought needs to be applied in all aspects of their thinking/lives. Their thinking has expanded beyond their self and recognizes that others need to be considered. Although they regularly reach deeper levels of both thinking and analysis; they still have not completely put it all together and still suffer from some minor inconsistencies. They have evolved to understand the connections between thoughts, ideals, feelings and emotions, and desires versus needs. Ultimately, they are consistently digging deeper into their thought, and actively monitoring their own thoughts, and working on improving their system.

The Accomplished Thinker:The accomplished thinker has internalized a new nature; they simply are critical thinkers. They continually grow and work on improving their mind while also applying this improvement to their lives and to our world. They have, according to Elder and Paul, "a high degree of intellectual humility, intellectual integrity, intellectual perseverance, intellectual courage, intellectual empathy, intellectual autonomy, intellectual responsibility and fair-mindedness."