What Does It Mean To Be Truly Educated

In his essay “What Does It Mean To Be Well-Educated,” Alfie Kohn challenges the current standards that people consider crucial in order for a person to be considered well-educated and explores some interesting questions that help provide the reader with a completely different understanding, perspective, and possibility for standards of good education. At the beginning, Kohn explains how people can argue about the purpose of education, but then fail to realize and recognize whether or not education has truly been successful. Then, Kohn provides the reader with an example of his wife, a successful physician who completed her study for doctoral dissertation in anthropology from Harvard, yet still lacks some educational basics that people consider necessary factors to possess in order for a person to fit in the defined group of well-educated individuals. (Kohn 231-232). After that, Kohn explores some definitions that people set as essential measurements for determining whether or not a person is well-educated and explains why all these standard definitions fail to either evaluate a person’s knowledge or make a person knowledgeable. For example, many people consider test scores, seat time, job skills, and memorization of facts as indicators of well-education. However, Kohn explains that sitting in class for a certain amount of time, “reducing schooling to vocational preparation…to suit the demands of employers,” receiving high results on tests, and memorization of pieces of

Education should not only be looked at as attending college and passing exams to succeed in school. Nevertheless, it should be seen as the complete development of one's personality, intellectual development, and moral evolution. The system tells everyone to learn the same material, even if the students are bored and even if they’re sleeping during class. In the article “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto states, “teachers didn’t seem to know much about their subject and clearly weren’t interested in learning” (Gatto). This shows the teachers and the students disconnect from the context because either it’s irrelevant or not being taught in inspiring ways. I believe an educated person should at least have some background knowledge for a job

Choices can make or break us depending on what we do. That is what Jon Spayde attempts to convey to his audience in his 1998 Unte Reader article, “What Does it Mean to Be Educated?” He goes through many examples and arguments that could possible answer this “surprisingly tricky and two-sided question” (Spayde paragraph 1). Although the actual arguments he poses throughout his article, he uses the rhetorical devices – ethos, pathos and logos, to get his readers to accept his purpose.

What does it mean to be well educated? To be well educated it is a balance between academics and practical knowledge. Throughout this paper I will show that one does not necessarily need a college degree to be deemed as well educated. I will explore both aspects of academics and practical knowledge and how it affects individuals.

Some people might like education, others might dread it and really don’t see a reason to continue learning about it. Today, for teachers and professors it’s easy to them to tell how the education they teach is effective for an individual student. As we know, education is being taught at school, home, and a little of both. For America today, most children attend preschool, kindergarten, elementary, middle school, high school, and college. Depending on the pupil's career choice, it can take up to 20 or more years completing their schooling system, Usually, during the middle and or high school years in America, professors teach you valid things pupils will be using in life.

Education is the gradual process of meaning making and acquiring “knowledge.” One views the world through his or her own set of lenses or filters, from his or her own perspective, and the mind of the learner attempts to connect new information to existing schema to make new connections. These constructions and connections in the brain become "knowledge." Therefore, knowledge when people begin to understand facts or information through experience and/or learning. We begin to realize, through knowledge, details that we learn in isolation are actually interconnected. Education can be intentional or unintentional and can occur everywhere and at any time. Education is greatly influenced by affective factors and social context. It has both internal and external value, both to a person and to all of society.

What defines a good education and what can classics like Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave teach us about it? Many people spend their life searching for wisdom and work hard to get a good education. Without education, society does not progress and knowledge does not thrive. If a society does not let knowledge thrive then the only thing that can thrive is ignorance.

What is education? Two words probably jump out at most people: learning and school. Yet, how much students are actually learning must be analyzed because passing through is not the same thing as experiencing. In the same case learning is the same thing as receiving information and moving on. Even so, schools are blindly addressing the two as the same thing because secondary institutions have compressed education into numbers that signify intelligence. However, when education and school become two entities, children are not able to reach their full potential which then leads to them being unhappy in life as an adult.

Therefore, there are many different viewpoints and opinions that different ages and genres of people might have on this topic. Though there are many different perspectives the standard definition is developing the power of reasoning and judgment, and generally preparing oneself intellectually for a mature life. In Daniel Pink’s article, “Mastery”, and in Sir Ken Robinson’s ted talk, “How to escape educations Death Valley”, these two men talk about their views on what education really is or might be and how to best educate other people.

Education not synonymous with schooling because a person who is educated does the polar opposite of what the school system and our society desires. An educated individual “think[s] critically and independently” instead of reflexively obeying, failing to question authority, and refusing to ‘think outside of the box,’ as the old saying goes (Gatto). This person is not “conditioned to dread being alone, and seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships…” Instead, they possess the ability to find solace in being by themselves in addition to “develop[ing] and inner life so that they will never be bored,” (Gatto). Lastly, Gatto asserts that education is studying “the grown up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, [and] theology,” which are the subjects he claims that instructors are conditioned to

Quality in education is one of the most discussed issues around the globe among educational community. There is an emerging consensus that quality in education depends on the enabling inputs, educational processes, teachers’ abilities, and learners’ characteristics and the specific context.

The article “The Poet of Our Dreams: The Real Meaning of Education,” written by David James, discusses the topic of attempting to define an educated person. Everyone has their own idea on what is meant by being educated, whether the term is connected to academics only or to everyday life skills. Despite everyone’s different opinions, the article states that a general agreement can be made on the importance of communication, problem-solving skills, the ability to learn, and the understanding of the society and culture in which one lives. Although the commonly surfacing argument in today’s school is what to teach and what not teach, as humans, each individual is given the right to define their own life. By each individual doing this, everyone

The term ‘education’ can mean many things. An education is the collective knowledge a person has, but what does an education mean? Although an education can be paid for, no one can physically give you an education, so it is not a gift. There are societal situations where an education is a necessity, but not many globally. Education is a tool to be utilized differently in every part of the world. Knowledge is power, but some knowledge is more powerful depending on your region. If you are part a primitive tribe in New Guinea, a person that is considered to be educated may be illiterate. Whereas in America, an illiterate person would have trouble functioning at all in society. Education is a tool that is to be

People have ignored the importance of education in one's life nowadays. They give too much emphasis on the grade that they will get and not on the wisdom that they will obtain from it. We must realize that the grades does not exactly determine how well we have learn but it is through experience where we learn most. For example, a person learns how to love oneself more when one experience pain and suffering. A person becomes stronger when it faces different challenges in his life. Hence, experience is the basis of the level of knowledge and it is the ultimate judgment on a person's level.

I like a quote from a speech of John F. Kennedy and it says, “ My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” I can change that to, “My fellow Students, ask not what your education can do for you, ask what can you do for your education.” How can I define education? My definition of my schooling can be described as “harsh” and “mediocre”. I think learning is the most important part a human being can have. Someone without an education can be easily be deceived.