Use of Riddles as the Revivable Sources of Iranian Ethnic Groups in the Development of Critical Thinking in Children and Adolescents

Riddles are one of the components of the folk literature of Iranian ethnic groups. In the past, they were one of the major tools for improving thinking and rationality as well as promoting the level of thinking, optimizing the methods of thinking, and developing thinking skills in children. However, they can be revived and updated in order to be used for the same purposes today. As we can see, there are several instances of riddles in Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon literature. The wise men of various Iranian ethnic groups, such as Turks, Azaris, Kurds, Lors, Baluchis, and Gilakis, used and disseminated riddles as rich sources of developing ways of thinking. At that time children became involved in those fascinating game-like riddles which provided the basis for rational thinking in their mind. These instructive games which were followed by rewarding children with encouraging comments and small prizes sometimes had miraculous outcomes and helped to form the foundations of Iranian thought. In this paper, the author intends to demonstrate that critical thinking, which is of great importance in the world today, is embedded along with all of its six-fold elements in these rich sources. Through reviving and updating these native elements of folk literature, in addition to preserving them, we can continue exploiting a rich source of critical thinking which has previously proved to be very useful. Here, while referring to equivalent riddles among various Iranian ethnic groups, the author tries to match them with the six-fold elements of critical thinking.