To be or not to be, educated!

In our quest for meaningful purpose we assail ourselves with a barrage of knowledge, useless and useful facts, theories, ideas, and concepts. This quest starts when we are of young age, preschool, elementary through high school. From our youth we spill over into college, and, all the while, we are absorbing countless bits of information. To what end? To be educated? What does being educated mean?

Jeffrey Gordon takes a long hard look at these questions in his “Introduction: The University in Your Life.” Gordon provides for us six key characteristics of an educated person to help us better understand what being educated means. Let us take a moment and reflect on these six characteristics and determine for ourselves what being educated is all about.

The first is a Personal Standpoint. It is a position we take, throughout our lives, on the numerous ideas laid within our hands. Directly influenced by our parents, educators, religious leaders, politicians, and media, as well as the world around us. They serve us to critically take thought of ourselves surrounded by the world we liven in. They shape and mold our beliefs, morals, and convictions upon the things we feel pertinent.

The capability to Disinterest Reflection is to not value the worth of thought on the immediate too heavily. Seeking out how the immediate thought is part of the grand scope of reality. You reading this paper may be processing the thought of its interpretation, extending the thoughtful process of its interpretation herein to envelop it around your life, and the lives around you. Pushing to search for its applicable measure is the capitalization of your ability to see the bigger picture.

Thoughtfulness, is the third characteristic explained by Gordon to be the resolve of capturing existence and to maintain the raw sensory input of experience for the sphere of influence to conscious thought. LIFE!!! With the introspection of our lives experiences in relation to how they influence our thought is the true quality of life. To sit idly on the sofa in our living rooms scared of what may be outside that door is to constrict our ability to fully absorb what life has to offer us mentally by way of stimuli. An educated person might grab for the chance to jump from a plane, to process the thought of what it is like to enjoy the wind pulsing over your face. Then files the experience back for future use, and contemplates the relation to other possible experiences that they may pursue.

The Mastery of Language, while the supercilious may fling it about as if to wield a trophy saying, “Look at me, I am educated,” it is still none the less palpably of an individual that takes great care of the words they use. When we respect this vehicle of expression, we take the time to carefully apply thought into what it is we want to say, how we want to say it, and the purpose of what we say. Our ability to communicate is an example of the time we have spent contemplating how to express our ideas that transform the lives around us.

Solicitude toward Humankind is the drive to have some positive impact on the condition of the human community to which we are a member. That by our studies of history and literature, we understand the triumphs and suffering of humanity. Propelling us to make a difference by accepting obligation, for the better, of human destiny.

Finally, Gordon defines the educated as having Life as an Adventure of the Spirit. Encompassing the revelation of only the greatest of human achievements with the a sense of human potential. By contemplating all of the wonders of man, be it thought, idea, creative expression, and achievements, we enrich ourselves with the possibilities of making our name a positive, permanent mark in historical culture. This way of thinking opens ourselves to the question of how best a human being may live his or her life? Moreover, what is the most meaningful of accomplishments we may undertake? By accepting life as an adventure of spirit we become more able to answer these questions, and further apply them.

In summation, I would like to share with you which of these characterizations best describes and educated individual. While Jeffery Gordon eloquently describes in detail these characterizations, I cannot help but think that he overlooked the most important of all, one which drives us to excel in adapting all of the character traits Gordon provides.

To be Intellectually Humble, in my opinion, is by far the most defining characteristic of them all. The ability to introspectively accept that we are not educated, or intelligent. It is a perception of self that forces us to push harder, think more clearly, open our minds to new ideas and concepts at all times. While our formal education may come to end with the successful completion of a college career, we grasp on to the idea that our education is so very far from over. From the moment we are born into this world, to the moment our last breath escapes our lips, we possess the ability to be in a constant state of learning. This alone is the driving force to an infinite world of knowledge and critical thinking, which will ultimately lead to an excitement for understanding ourselves and the world around us. Without this trait, we do not push ourselves to excel. We walk blindly, lacking the proper desire to want to understand, to think on a critical level, to soak in all that life experiences have to offer us, to absorb great literature, and to strive for a magnificent vocabulary. Ultimately, intelligently humbling ourselves exceeds the limitations of our true educational potential.