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</p>
<p>I think you’ve got it… The message was about humility. An educated person knows that you can learn something from anyone. CC just has lots of “anyone’s” (of all levels of education) that we just happen to be able to identify with.</p>
<p>No disparagement intended.</p>
<p>idic5: No, I wouldn’t say I WENT to college in order to learn that. I would say that from my undergraduate and graduate school experiences I learned that becoming educated to any extent is ultimately not as significant as being compassionate. Sorry if my post was off-topic and/or inane.</p>
<p>goalie, thanks for the clarification and understood about cc.</p>
<p>je_ne: the ellipsis in the OP allows for the school of experience. Linking to goalie’s statement, ‘having perspective’ (as in what is most important) is a part of assessing whether one is educated.</p>
<p>We’re seeing an importance of a lifelong disposition to learning, which seems to also imply a certain humility. To learn from another, you gotta have some room in your cup (recall the overflowing cup of ego in that zen story- cup needs to be empty to accept orunderstand something new; also recall Socrates who said, ‘There is only one thing that I know, that I know nothing.’). </p>
<p>Then we have a recurring theme of the importance of kindness. Kindness is related to humility and perspective.</p>
<p>I’ll contribute this anecdote as education from the school of experience…</p>
<p>At yesterday’s HS senior awards event, I clapped the loudest for the person who had perfect attendance for four yrs. I have known this person since early grade school, and she is less than avg in the numbers dept (gpa/act/rank), and I don’t think there was a college noted for her, but she more than compensates with her work ethic and doing as much as she can with what she has.</p>
<p>Since I have been caught up in the last few months with the college search and numbers/numbers/numbers/, I was going to the awards event with that in mind, looking for the most garish gpa, test score, class rank, most prestigious colleges, then I clapped the hardest for this person, making it clear to me that education is more than those numbers.</p>
<p>I still think you gotta know about the 2nd law of thermadynamics to consider yourself ‘educated’. :)</p>
<p>I emailed my friend and he reminded me that it was CP Snow, in his Two Cultures lectures, who said this bit about the importance of understanding entropy.</p>
<p>my friend said,
“It got into a big row between him and F.R. Leavis (interesting that they were both known by their intials) called the Two Cultures debate.”</p>
<p>[The</a> Two Cultures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures]The”>The Two Cultures - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>[The</a> Two Cultures: C.P. Snow, Literature and Science"](<a href=“http://academics.vmi.edu/gen_ed/Two_Cultures.html]The”>http://academics.vmi.edu/gen_ed/Two_Cultures.html)</p>
<p>We <em>don’t</em> want to ‘go to college to be stupid’, so…</p>
<p>school of experience/hard knocks</p>
<p>kindness and compassion,
Hard work and working with all the cards you were dealt (to your potential),
perspective, humility,
know how to say I’m sorry, I was wrong I love you
learn to fail (continue to in the face of failure)
capacity to learn new things,
critical thinking; know the right question
get along with different types of people
know that profit is revenue minus expenses
buy in cash as much as you can
buy, don’t rent – or at least know what the difference is
Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten ( <a href=“http://www.heartwarmingstories.net/everything.htm[/url]”>http://www.heartwarmingstories.net/everything.htm</a> )</p>
<p>school of academia</p>
<p>basic geography – where the heck is that place anyway?
Know enough biology to understand a doctor’s explanation
know what the periodic table of elements is
know at least ¾ of the presidents
know at least one play/storyline of Shakespeare
General knowledge of micro and macro economics
Basic understanding of western history
Impact of western colonialism and imperialism on Asia and the Americas
Familiarity with cultural/literary archetypes–either through literature, folklore or anthropology.
Genesis and formation of major ideas informing western thought+
Know at least a little of a foreign language (read some text and talk)
Working knowledge of the principles of statistics
Know how to distinguish science and pseudo science</p>
<p>both schools
write well,
read a lot
make a coherent argument or analysis</p>
<p>+(I think I’d include the 2nd law of thermodynamics here; this might an interesting thread - ‘what are THE major ideas informing western thought?’)</p>
<p>I think that one of the most important aspects of an education is a knowledge of history and what has happened before in a civilization so that mistakes are not repeated.</p>
<p>I also think an educated person should be aware that people suffering from serious mental illnesses are unable to help themselves and need help from health care professionals in the same way that those who are physically ill need them. I have known too many emotionally healthy people who think that mentally ill people should be able to just “snap out of it” or change their “attitude”.</p>
<p>Yes, gladmom, great points. The genius Jefferson knew as much when he set up the idea of the public school system to help give education to the greatest number. He knew that if mankind were going to have this great (new+) concept of rule by the people, democracy, that an educated populace was essential, else you’d end up with the chaos that was then happening in France. </p>
<p>Your point about the mentally ill implies a greater knowledge of people and socio-biologic processes; so it entails knowledge, empathy, perspective, compassion.</p>
<p>+we know the ancient Greeks conceived and implemented the idea of democracy - hey, that’s history - but something kind of halted its growth and evolution - hey, more history; this bit itself is a testament to gladmom’s statement.</p>
<p>My own very personal prejudice, based on what, looking back 30 years, has consistently and positively impacted my life:</p>
<p>A person isn’t educated who has not traveled.</p>
<p>A person is not educated who can only speak, read, and write in one language.</p>
<p>I disagree about the language thing- There are plenty of bums in Europe that speak multiple languages- they’re still bums, they just happened to live somewhere where multiple languages were spoken. Learning a language just facilitates communication with more people, the same way improving any language skills make you better able to communicate.</p>
<p>I always liked this quote by Robert Heinlein:
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”</p>
<p>Opie-</p>
<p>I didn’t say that knowing a second language -> being educated.</p>
<p>I said NOT knowing a second language -> not being educated.
(formal logic training coming through…)</p>
<p>I’m willing to argue that that may not be the case - like I said, it’s my own prejudice, based on the value that travel and a second language have brought to my life. </p>
<p>All these are opinions. I’m 47 with degrees in mathematics and French, and I have lived, studied, and worked abroad. I now teach high school, and have taught various subjects, and I’m still learning all the time. Knowing a second language, and using it, (including the travel) has opened my world more than the majority of stuff I learned in college. The logic from the math training was very important, too.</p>
<p>Well, yeah, anything that exposes you to new ideas- ones that you wouldn’t get in your home country- will help you out, but my argument was that language skill is a means to an end. In and of itself, speaking multiple languages doesn’t mean anything.</p>
<p>Has learned how to learn, and is open to new ideas.</p>
<p>son of opie, </p>
<p>I LOVE that Heinlein quote in your post #29. That is got to be maybe the best bit of text in this whole website. Thanks for sharing it. What did Whitman say, "I am large. I contain multitudes…'?</p>
<p>Here’s the classic litmus test for unenlightenment, as far as I’m concerned. Life is full of apparently obvious solutions to persistent societal problems (e.g., “A rule is a rule - if they’re undocumented, put them in a truck and send them back across the border.”). Unenlightened people constantly call for the “obvious” solutions to be put into effect, usually stopping to label those in leadership positions “morons” for failing to see the obvious answers. If there are people who deal with particular problems every day of their professional lives, and if they didn’t long ago jump at the apparently obvious answers, then you can be pretty sure that those “answers” are fatally flawed. A higher education, if anything, teaches one that few issues are cut-and-dried, and few significant challenges can be addressed simply without creating new challenges.</p>
<p>The old “Nothing worth believing fits on a bumper sticker” idea, huh?</p>
<p>Again, Jefferson’s ideal of an educated citizenry is an attempt to mitigate extremely bad leaders - leaders with extremely bad policies.</p>
<p>This is a very good thread. Bump.</p>
<p>As the OP, I would like to remove the ‘retrospection’ part of the thread, and open the question to everyone, included new students, and not just to the people offering the wisdom of hindsight.</p>
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</p>
<p>A person is not educated who has not learned . . .</p>
<p>that we don’t know as much as we think we know.</p>
<p>Some interesting thoughts on this in a WaPo article on investment mistakes, including this comment by a Princeton psyhologist who teams with a U. Chicago economist in the field of behavioral economics:</p>
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</p>
<p>Article here: [washingtonpost.com</a> - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines](<a href=“http://washingtonpost.com%5Dwashingtonpost.com”>http://washingtonpost.com)</p>
<p>… ALL the words to “Hava Nagila.”</p>