What Does It Mean to be Educated?

What does it mean to be educated, or to be a person of education? These expressions usually mean something quite different today than they did a century or two ago. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary gives several definitions for the word educate, including "to train by formal instruction and supervised practice especially in a skill, trade, or profession" and "to develop mentally, morally, or aesthetically especially by instruction." In today's fast paced world, emphasis is usually placed on the first definition. The argument seems to be that science and technology have come so far, and the world is so complex, that an individual must specialize in order to accomplish anything.

As a result, for most people today, education means training for a particular career. More specifically, many think of acquiring an education as synonymous with acquiring a four-year college degree. More education means another degree. Conversely, to be uneducated means not having attended college and therefore not having a degree.

While such a degree may help to prepare an individual for a particular field of employment, how much emphasis does the curriculum, or the student, place on 'developing mentally, morally, or aesthetically'? Concurrently, does it necessarily follow that a person without a college degree is uneducated, even inferior, as some seem to believe?

Many "educated" people have seen how specious such reasoning can be. For example, after listing a large number of successful individuals with little formal education, on the website Education Reform, Dr. Shaun Kerry says that rather than limit their education to formal schooling, such individuals were curious about the world around them, and that such a spirit of exploration led them to discover their true passion and strengths. This led to their success.

Dr. Kerry even goes so far as to say that, "Ultimately, formal education - by placing the control of learning in the hands of teachers and administrators, and imposing rules and requirements on students - stifles the natural love for learning." Allan Bloom, in his famous book The Closing of the American Mind makes a similar point. The subtitle of the book summarizes his view, How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy And Impoverished The Souls Of Today's Students.

What is the solution to the problem? Not the abolition of formal institutions of higher learning. The key, as Dr. Kerry points out, is a curiosity about the world around us. This is what made Leonardo da Vinci a universal man. Because no one told him he had to specialize in one thing, his interests and accomplishments covered a wide range of fields.

This curiosity can be satisfied in many ways, certainly by books, but also by living itself, by travel, by social interaction, even by work. This is the point made by one of the most widely published and beloved authors of all time, Louis L'Amour. Although he left school in the 10th grade, he had a thirst for knowledge. Before becoming a writer he traveled extensively, working at a variety of jobs, including lumberjack, skinner of dead cattle, elephant handler, and assessment miner. He became a seaman and circled the world on a freighter. During WWII he was an officer on tank destroyers. He fought as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. His varied experiences included sailing a dhow on the Red Sea, being shipwrecked in the West Indies, and stranded in the Mojave Desert. At the same time, he read. As The Official Louis L'Amour Website says, "Louis liked to brag that from 1928 until 1942 he read more than 150 non-fiction books a year and that in order to do it he worked miserable jobs and lived in skid row hotels and campgrounds."

His experiences and self imposed reading program were an education, one that would be hard to duplicate in any formal institution of higher learning. It could be argued that this education prepared him for his chosen profession. Yet it did more than that, it opened his eyes to a larger world.

Few today are prepared to acquire an education by living the kind of life that Louis L'Amour led. Yet, if we choose to, most of us can read. From the safety and security of our own homes, we can travel through time and across the world. Modern technology has given us access to the accumulated knowledge of all mankind.

As Louis L'Amour states in his biography, Education Of A Wandering Man, "Books are the building blocks of civilization, for without the written word, a man knows nothing beyond what occurs during his own brief years and, perhaps, in a few tales his parents tell him."

In today's world, books are more widely available than ever before. Yet sadly, very few take advantage of them. In his book, The Closing of the American Mind Allan Bloom says that he first noticed a decline in reading in the late sixties. He says that at that time, "I began asking my large introductory classes, and any other group of younger students to which I spoke, what books really count for them. Most are silent, puzzled by the question. The notion of books as companions is foreign to them. Justice Black with his tattered copy of the Constitution in his pocket at all times is not an example that would mean much to them. There is no printed word to which they look for counsel, inspiration or joy."

If asked the same question, how would you answer? Of course, over the years, many reading lists have been compiled, listing what books other people feel are essential for a complete education. Links to some of these lists can be found on the Great Books Lists page of a website created by a librarian named Robert Teeter. Or you can read what interests you. That may be more important than reading a book just because doing so is a requirement for something, or so that we can say that we have read it.

What books count with you? Which have made an impression on you? Which have made you think? What have you learned from them? Even popular culture has dealt with this subject, in the movie Dead Poets Society, where a teacher tries to do more than just impart information. Rather than training his students to parrot back someone else's opinion, he uses the power of the written word to encourage them to actually think.

So, are you educated? Not, are you trained to do a specific job, but have you 'developed mentally, morally, or aesthetically'? Has this education ended? Or are you still trying to satisfy a curiosity about the world around you?. By : Buzzle Staff and Agencies

Education Matters

Education is a fundamental process and should be done with great responsibility and devotement, because the future of those who pass through it depends on the quality of education. Can you imagine living all your life alone, not talking to anyone not even seeing anyone around? What?! That's no life!

Yes, we are created to be social beings and socializing is a basic process in society. Socializing actually means to build up relationships with individuals or groups of individuals.

To be successful here, some specific skills are required: talking skills, gesture skills, a certain attitude etc. Your behavior also plays and essential role; being more precise, education is the fundamental element that makes the difference.

It is well-known that one can receive education from various persons, in various places , under varied forms and in varied times of life.

The first level would be the family, as psychologists and social workers consider it the most important and prolific environment. This is the place you get your primary principles and moral values. Things you learn while you are a child are the ones which remain stocked in your memory for a long time and they are hard to be changed or abolished.

In the second level, you start going in public places such as kindergarten, school, university, workplace, etc. and you receive another sort of education, specialized in different areas.

Going further, education can be offered deliberately or unconsciously. We can take mass-media for example: it is very well-known that it has such a great influence on us, and especially on children. They do not watch television, or surf the internet ,or listen to the radio with an educational purpose, but in spite of this, mass-media plays and extremely important role in education, very frequently having a negative influence.

In addition, education can also be auto-made. After reaching the age where you start rationing and taking serious decisions, you start selecting what is good and wrong, what is important and what is unimportant, how to treat certain individuals and so on.

This means that you auto-educate yourself. We have to admit that this has a great importance and you are to do this all of life, because every day you encounter new situations and persons, and you just have to know how to respond.

However, education does not follow the same patterns in every corner of the world; we can say that education depends on geographical and historical terms.

Exemplifying, what things are general valid in one part, are completely misunderstood in another part: Russian boys are educated to cross feet when they sit down, but if you do such a thing in the U.S.A you are considered to be a homosexual. This is a banal example, but there are many other things that follow this pattern exactly.

Dr. Jung states that you can speak about the word "education" only from the age of 2. Until then, it is considered that the children are not educated, they are being trained, because they don't use they ration in order to act, they are just...trained to do so. He also says that both training and education are based on the same fundamental truth: achievement crowned with reward.

So, children are asked to do something knowing that if they fulfill that particular demand they will be awarded, with sweets, with a hug, a kiss, or with gratitude.

Moreover, specialists develop special programs for parents who want to offer a good education to their children. I think all of these programs must be mixed with parental love and understanding, and with the culture they are living in.

We could say that education is something hereditary, that your parents inherited from their parents and so on, but there are facts which clearly demonstrate that this is not necessarily true.

For example, there are children who grow up in families with alcoholic parents and they receive a precarious education, still, when they have their own families they do the exact opposite, willing that their children shall have a better life than they had. It is very sad that it is not always happening this way.

Parents who received a poor education and had a miserable life as children, repeat the history with their new families. It can be for two reasons: the first one is the desire to get vengeance (might sound cruel and not human, but there are many cases like this worldwide) and the second on is ignorance and fear of trying a new style of life.

In conclusion, education is a fundamental process and should be done with great responsibility because the future of those who pass through it depends on the quality of education. By : Claudia Miclaus