Training vs. Education

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Monday, March 21. 2016

Some higher ed is work training, some is general education, and some is a mix. It is the "general education" part, aka Liberal Arts, that most people mean by "an educated person." Can you discuss Plato? And Aristotle, sorry to tell you New Age profs, is the foundation of everything. De Poetica? Yeah! Have to read it.

What that has devolved into today is anybody's guess.

He got a B.A., M.A., Ph.D., But Little Education

Posted by The Barrister in Education at 19:07 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

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Well, yes and no. I'm old enough I guess to have received a good Liberal arts education/exposure in junior and high school. I'm just not sure most public high schools can compare with a Massachusetts high school in the 50's. On the other side of that coin college for me was too many electives and "filler" classes and not enough in my chosen field of study. Call it "training" if you think that is what it is but "training" in chemistry, physics and math is rigorous and necessary. And it's right there where I differ with the author; that is the training in your field is necessary and the liberal arts are maybe good, or fun, or enlightening but not necessary.

#1 GoneWithTheWind on 2016-03-22 01:01 (Reply)

A decent point. If you have not already read CP Snow's Two Cultures I recommend it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

#1.1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2016-03-22 10:11 (Reply)

regarding education, the writer wants college to be something it cannot be. only the gods know why anyone thinks education begins and ends with kollege. in fact, it hasn't even begun.

1. college and professional school are good to get your tickets punched on the way to a license or equivalent if your career field requires such, or, "training" as Kamplin puts it. and the purpose of that is so you can make enough money to marry, raise vermin, own things, build a life, sponsor Boaty McBoatface expeditions, etc. etc. et al. that's all the degree is worth.

2. any other assigned value to this piece of paper is fetish. that is why bullshit like wymyns' studies, feminist studies, black wymyn's feminist studies are pernicious lies, because they elevate branding or form (having a degree!) over an especially weak-assed substance that only buys a lifetime of debt.

3. if you want an education in the classics, there's nothing stopping anyone from downloading from Amazon all the basic texts of western culture, starting with DC Comics. consider the Saint Crispin's Day speech in Henry V. if you are a mature adult and depending on who you are, while you may love it or revile it, you will understand it in a way that a year old sophomore cannot. At best, you might inculcate an nascent interest in literature that the kid can return to when he grows up.

4. depending on your major, a lot of the facts, theory, rules, interpretation, that you learned in school are now obsolescent if not obsolete.

5. in the years of my formal education, the only things I carried afterwards have been how to think/reason, how to write, how to construct a formal argument and how to destroy the same using rhetorical devices both fair and unfair, and that's about it.

#2 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2016-03-22 01:12 (Reply)

High school taught me to type. Undergrad, major/minor both hard science, taught me literature search and experimentation. Grad school taught me self-discipline and perseverance. These skills served me well in 50+ years of professional life largely unrelated to either the major or minor, or grad field for that matter, and they still serve me well 20 years into retirement.

#2.1 BillhH on 2016-03-22 10:22 (Reply)

my HS didn't offer typing, it was a college-prep school run by the Jesuits. I learned because Dad told me, one summer morning, that I wouldn't be playing baseball until I could type at so-many words per minute. this only took a few weeks.

#2.1.1 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2016-03-22 11:48 (Reply)

The advantage to being taught literature, history, grammar, logic, religion, and philosophy in high school is that you can get a great deal of memorization out of the way. Memorizing the basic knowledge helps a great deal with studying and understanding it on your own as an adult. It's why children think history is so boring. But, already knowing the when and where of the Civil War makes it much easier to go back later to study why.

Today's standards are so low for young people that there is no room for Western Civ. Do you think most young people would be Feeling The Bern if they had a true understanding of American History?

#3 Jack Walter on 2016-03-22 07:48 (Reply)

QUOTE:

It is the "general education" part, aka Liberal Arts, that most people mean by "an educated person." Can you discuss Plato? And Aristotle, sorry to tell you New Age profs, is the foundation of everything. De Poetica? Yeah! Have to read it.

Interesting implications upon that statement. Apparently, there were no "educated" people in China, Japan, Tibet, etc., until they received the gift of Greek and Roman studies? Nor were their educated people prior to the mid-1400s, at least after the fall of Rome, until the revival of Greek and Roman studies?

QUOTE:

Usage: Education, properly a drawing forth, implies not so
much the communication of knowledge as the discipline
of the intellect, the establishment of the principles,
and the regulation of the heart. Instruction is that
part of education which furnishes the mind with
knowledge. Teaching is the same, being simply more
familiar. It is also applied to practice; as, teaching
to speak a language; teaching a dog to do tricks.
Training is a department of education in which the
chief element is exercise or practice for the purpose
of imparting facility in any physical or mental
operation. Breeding commonly relates to the manners
and outward conduct.
[1913 Webster]

Educated is not the possession of a particular body of knowledge, but rather having developed the intellectual discipline to synthesize new uses for the knowledge one has. A person who can quote Plato or Aristotle is not educated if they cannot ponder the implications.

And thus we see the problem with modern education, well, in fact, even historical education, many consider the regurgitation of facts of a particular kind education when in reality readings that held a particularly complex set of facts and ideas have been traditionally used to teach students how to discipline their intellect, regulate their hearts and establish principles within them.

We might attribute the decline in the educated with the widespread adoption of the "test of lower order thinking for the lower orders" more commonly known as the multiple choice test, which makes up the bulk of the SAT, and is particularly organized to reward knowledge of facts rather than skill in thinking.

#4 JK Brown on 2016-03-22 09:52 (Reply)

PhD in Geology and 50 years in the industry...and some education in there too, beginning with 4 years of Latin in high school--required in those bygone days. Plenty of History and Great Books, including the classics, as an undergrad and even some in grad school. Served me well.

#5 rocdoctom on 2016-03-22 12:35 (Reply)

if you've been in the field for 50 years, then in your college days they called plate tectonics 'continental drift' and the concept itself hadn't been in general acceptance.

#5.1 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2016-03-22 15:24 (Reply)

Roger that! No textbooks...just some journal publications...Vine and Matthews is one I remember--Science I believe. By 1970 it was well on its way to acceptance. The development of sonar for mapping ocean floor as well as magnetics--really for detecting submarines--was the real kick off for plate tectonic theory so really have the military to thank for jump starting the thinking that integrated all the earth and physical sciences under the plate tectonic umbrella. Lots of memories...

#5.1.1 rocdoctom on 2016-03-22 16:28 (Reply)

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Monday, March 21. 2016

Training vs. Education