One Skill Everyone Needs to Become the Best
– Dr Ibraheem Dooba
When transferring to our secondary school, the prospective student faced only one challenge. Our principal, an Irish Reverend, will ask you to write an essay. No mathematics tests, no science tests, just the essay.
I still remember mine. I was asked to write how to prepare a local dish – the pounded yam. I thought it was easy. But it appeared Reverend Father J. D. O’Connell was not happy with my composition because he circled the word “pestle” with his red pen. Up until this day, I don’t know why he did that because the spelling was correct and a pestle was a necessary tool in preparing pounded yam. But somehow, he admitted me.
The Best Writer is the Best Student – and the Best Employee!
I also didn’t understand why Father chose to test only the writing ability of the prospective students until I read the bestselling book “Rework” by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. The authors stretch Father’s wisdom beyond the recruitment of students to staff recruitment.
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“If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, ” the authors wrote in their book, “hire the best writer. It doesn’t matter if that person is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever; their writing skills will pay off. That’s because being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else’s shoes. They know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate.”
Writing is Today’s Currency for Ideas
Jason Fried and David Hansson concluded that writing is a currency for good ideas: “Writing is making a comeback all over our society. Look at how much people e-mail and text-message now rather than talk on the phone. Look at how much communication happens via instant messaging and blogging. Writing is today’s currency for good ideas.”
What the above examples show is that for both school and the workplace, writing is favoured. If this logic holds, then everyone should learn how to write.
Writing is the Best Way to Teach Critical Thinking
Interestingly, some experts believe that the best way to teach critical thinking is to through writing. In my article, “The Best Way to Teach Critical Thinking”, I relied heavily on Jordan Peterson’s work. The clinical psychologist said:
“The best way to teach people critical thinking is to teach them to write,” he said. ”If you can think and speak and write,” Peterson continued, ”you are absolutely deadly. Nothing can get in your way. That is why you learn to write. I can not believe why people are not told that. It is the most powerful weapon you can possibly provide someone with.”
In subsequent posts, I will show you three simple ways to write different contents: technical writing, the academic paper and an article for the general public – such as an article in the newspaper.
Series count: 18/100
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~ Ibraheem Dooba
