What is an Educated Person?

Schools teach, and students presumably learn. When I interact with recent graduates,  however, I wonder how well educated they are. I realize that notions of what makes an educated person have changed through the ages and that I have to “get with the new,”  but it is not easy to do. 

The Sparatican Greeks considered the gymnasium as essential to Greek culture. They saw the purpose of education to develop well rounded warriors.  They made education available to males and non-slaves through public schools and private tutors who included music and dance as ways of enhancing maneuverability as soldiers. Youth learned poetry and musical lyrics to focus attention on beauty, nobility, harmony and rhythm. Children were taught to read and write with a stylus on wax-covered boards and made to memorize and recite legends of old. By the time a boy reached adolescence formal education ended and human experience took over. 

It was not until about 420 BC that higher education emerged in Athens where philosophers and teachers like Socrates holding forth. Intellectual attainment began to be held in higher regard than physical capacity. It was a democratic city subject to the votes of adult male citizens. The Athenians believed that education should develop the whole man. To that end, studies included mathematics, astronomy, harmonics and dialectic. They thought it important to learn rhetoric and techniques of persuasion to get the assembly to act as they desired.  Skill training and academic subjects came later.  The goal of learning was to develop philosophical insight, a necessary tool for using knowledge within a framework of logic and reason.  Does that makes sense to you?  It does to me.

Society’s needs have changed, and notions of what makes an educated person is fraught with factionalism. Eleanor Dickey Professor of classics at the University of Reading, “Spartan king Agesilaus once said that what matters in education is that children must learn the skills they will use when they grow up.” Though still quoted, public schools don’t design curricula with that purpose in mind.

Several years ago students at Harvard were warned that professional credentials will count for less when measured against real world training. They compiled a list of the skills they thought were needed.

1. The ability to define problems without a guide.
2. The ability to ask hard questions which challenge prevailing assumptions.
3. The ability to quickly assimilate needed data from masses of irrelevant information.
4. The ability to work in teams without guidance.
5. The ability to work absolutely alone.
6. The ability to persuade others that your course is the right one.
7. The ability to conceptualize and reorganize information into new patterns.
8. The ability to discuss ideas with an eye toward application.
9. The ability to think inductively, deductively and dialectically.
10. The ability to attack problems heuristically (learn something for yourself).

Josh Kaufman, noted author of the Personal MBA, added to this compilation a list of what he calls “Core Human Skills.”

1. Information-Assimilation – how to find, consume, and comprehend information and identify what’s most important in the face of a problem or challenge.
2. Writing – how to communicate thoughts and ideas in written form clearly and concisely.
3. Speaking – how to communicate thoughts and ideas to others clearly, concisely, and with confidence.
4. Mathematics – how to accurately use concepts from arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, and statistics to analyze and solve common problems.
5. Decision-Making – how to identify critical issues, prioritize, focus energy/effort, recognize fallacies, avoid common errors, and handle ambiguity.
6. Rapport – how to interact with other people in a way that encourages them to like, trust, and respect you.
7. Conflict-Resolution – how to anticipate potential sources of conflict and resolve disagreements when they occur.
8. Scenario-Generation – how to create, clarify, evaluate, and communicate a possible future scenario that assists in decision-making, either for yourself or another person.
9. Planning – how to identify the necessary next steps to achieve an objective, account for dependencies, and prepare for the unknown and inevitable change via the use of contingencies.
10. Self-Awareness – how to accurately perceive and influence your own internal states and emotions, including effective management of limited energy, willpower, and focus.
11. Interrelation – how to recognize, understand, and make use of key features of systems and relationships, including cause-and-effect, second and third-order effects, constraints, and feedback loops.
12. Skill Acquisition – how to go about learning a desired skill in a way that results in competence by finding and utilizing available resources, deconstructing complex processes, and actively experimenting with potential approaches.

Not to be outdone, Princeton University also made  list. Though it incorporates much of the above, it is more philosophically nuanced.

1. The ability to think, speak, and write clearly.
2. The ability to reason critically and systematically.
3. The ability to conceptualize and solve problems.
4. The ability to think independently.
5. The ability to take initiative and work independently.
6. The ability to work in cooperation with others and learn collaboratively.
7. The ability to judge what it means to understand something thoroughly.
8. The ability to distinguish the important from the trivial, the enduring from the ephemeral.
9. Familiarity with the different modes of thought (including quantitative, historical, scientific, and aesthetic.)
10. Depth of knowledge in a particular field.
11. The ability to see connections among disciplines, ideas and cultures.

I especially like Princeton’s #8, “the ability to distinguish the important from the trivial, the enduring from the ephemeral.”

Do you agree with the above lists and if so, do you think our classrooms are designed to produce educated children? Do we train them in ways to impact positively to the world positively or is their education aimed at boosting the economy. Do they graduate knowing how to participate in a democracy, to be inventive, to think independently and to evaluate the overwhelming onslaught of information they are subject to.

I talk to students studying for higher degrees who think of themselves, but give little thought to how their studies will benefit the broader society. I observe many youth living hermitic lives, spending untold hours playing computer games, communicating trivia to friends, and forwarding unanalyzed tweets as fact. They do the world little good. 

My notion of an educated person includes the expectation that knowledge should be applied to improve civilization.  I envision youth learning to recognize right from wrong, truth from lies, and be able to evaluate shades in-between. I would hope they  treat their peers well and competently handle personal finances, their job, and relationships. 

As the Spartans believed, educated people need to be physically fit, mentally alert and able to recognize beauty. But to society demands much more. It needs emotionally stable people to step forward assuming inspirational roles that use what they learned to impact others positively. Being grounded in the arts and history will help students climb on the shoulders of previous giants, understand their successes and failures, enabling them to see the way forward. 

References:

Marelisa,F *(201920) 50 Characteristics of an Educated Person. Daring to live Fully, retrieved from https://daringtolivefully.com/educated-person

kaufman,J. (2020) What Must and Educated Person Know? Harvard University and Prinscton’s  list. retrieved from https://joshkaufman.net/what-must-an-educated-person-know/

Fineman, J. (2016) What really Makes Someone an ‘Educated’ Person? Odyssey, University of California Santa Cruz, retrieved from https://www.theodysseyonline.com/what-makes-someone-an-educated-person

Education in ancient Greece. Wikipedia. retrieved from their web site at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_ancient_Greece

Dickey,E (2014)The ancient Greeks and the importance of education. Being Human. Retrieved from https://beinghumanfestival.org/ancient-greeks-importance-education/