Jan 02 2009
What does it mean to be educated?
Happy New Year Readers,
Sorry it has been a few days since my last post but you know how it is with end of year arrivals. I thought to myself what would make a good topic to continue this Education blog.
For many years I have wondered about education and what it means to be educated.
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.”Do we suddenly arrive at a point in our lives when we are educated? Education is a lifelong process, and I don’t believe we go to school expecting to be really and fully educated. Whether one is in school or not, whether one goes to school or not, whether you have a degree or not, does not in itself mean that one “is educated.” An education is not simply something you can purchase for a price like a product, and then to be expected to “be educated.”
Suppose one goes to school to study one thing and like a lot of people, graduates college and must seek employment. What does it mean when you go to school for one thing, and get a job doing something totally different from what you studied in school. It does not invalidate the educational experience, but one begins to wonder what is the best way that one can spend the money to maximize a return on investment.
The ability to think and to reason, or to reflect upon life and our surroundings should be a benchmark on which to place the title of being educated.
Of the seven or eight different types of intelligences, from musical, to mathematical/logical to linguistic, to visual/spatial, body-kinesthetic, to intrapersonal and interpersonal communication, there has not been enough attention placed for the varying degrees of learners. Schools of the past cater mostly to the auditory style, where the teacher says X and expects the student to learn by hearing the information, most likely through repetition and testing, and reteaching. This leaves out a vast percentage of those who learn visually, by seeing information in front of them or at their fingertips, for example, with laptops, computer screens or through games.
