Our first in a series of interesting reading matter/ articles/ op ed pieces comes from the September 2001 issue of Progressive Farmer and asks the question what IS an education and are we more educated today than our forefathers were?

What do you think?

We welcome your cordial discussion of the issues raised in this article!

ginny

There are just so many more venues of learning available today to assist us in the education process. I am ambivilent about this question. One side of me wants to shout "We don't read enough anymore to learn." We stumble around groping for all of our off/on buttons hoping to learn from the TV/radio media. Of course we are innundated with the medias slanted views and opinions. We are bombarded with disgusting media blitzes i.e. Monica, Condit and expected to join in the networks beliefs. Due to these facts, I feel that we are not using our own powers of deduction, reasoning and communication with others. When is the last time that you sat with someone and just chatted about world events or opined about a matter and listened to anothers opinion without interrupting? I'm talking about something more substantial such as Milosevic'es trials, Bush's foreign policy/ or lack of. We just don't "talk" together anymore.

The flip side of this is that the TV/radio media provides us with ample choices. I just finished watching the National Book Tour in DC where John McCulloch was present, reading and answering questions. I loved it. Had I not already bought John Adams I would run out today and purchase it, just from listening to his comments and description of this interesting man. We can access the Inet with one click of a button to tune into world events, the Time Magazine of where ever we wish to go. Encyclopedias are installed on our computers to facillitate our "search" for more information. The links are overwhelming. This adds so much to our studies. So which way do I believe? I don't know, both answers have their negative and their positive sides.

This sounds as though it could be an interesting discussion--hope it goes well. But I am afraid I am going to start off by being picky. Would you please change "Forbears" in the Heading to "Forbearers"? Otherwise, people will think those who came before us were of the ursine pursuasion. Unless, in fact they really were bears? 8=}

Also, being an old (and I do mean old) Kansan, it is Salina and not Seline.

But I really DO think this could be an interesting dicussion! Good luck!

ahhahaha, Thank you, Phyll, there's good news and bad news, which do you want first?

Forebear is a word and it means, according to my dictionary, "A person from whom one is descended?"

However I will bow to your Kansan knowledge and change Seline? I copied it wrong off the test, thank you for that head's up!!

---

Andrea, we've been having a field day with these questions, I can't answer 90 percent of them. I mentioned the one about the Atlantic coast and the Pacific Coast to a friend this morning and she said the TIDES ginny, haven't you ever heard of El Nino? OOps. Er....well yeah.

This is about 40 years after the Civil War in the United States, this test. Many of the letters and books written then are very fluent and well written with superior, you'd have to say, vocabularies, it's obvious that there was some education going on yet I believe the original article in the Progressive Farmer Magazine noted an extremely low percentage of persons going beyond the 8th grade, something like 2 percent had entered college, it just was not the thing.

We're beginning a whole series of looking at the ideas of magazine and newspaper articles here in the Books, we hope in future people will bring IN intersting articles for our interest at they read.

This is not MY discussion but that test is really making the rounds and I thought you all would like to see it. So far I'm o-11 and climbing high, it's fun to try , anyway.

You raise a good point, Andrea, on the internet too. It's just amazing what you can find and learn and we here by blending all our experiences and viewpoints are actually learning from each other all the time, it's a great learning experience.

I'll change Selina, I've learned that, too!

ginny

And...we've had a lot of remarks here in the Books over the last 5 years about what constitutes an "education," we thought this would be a great place to compare educations now and then and (even IF this is a teacher's exam it's a killer, no) what our concept now is of "educated?"

ginny

I think it will be interesting to reflect on not only that more information is available through electronic means, BUT WHAT WE DO WITH THAT KNOWLEDGE once we have accessed it.

I'm a firm believer in not only keeping up with the most current "tools" of learning (computers, electronic libraries, etc.), but also the more traditional ones. WRITING IN COMPLETE SENTENCES, not just cyberlanguage. I chuckled when I glanced through a university catalogue and noticed a class in "creative letter writing - by hand!" I use my email all the time, do a lot of research on the Net, but I also continue to write letters by hand. I just like to write! The words flowing along the page are satisfying to me in a way that computer generated and printed words are not.

I read a bit of trivia that might be an interesting point here. In a book on Islam and Arabs in Early American Thought by Prof. Fuad Sha'ban, Chair of the American History Dept. at the University of Damascus, he noted that the Holy Qur'an was REQUIRED READING for the students at Harvard Univesrity in the 1700's in order to be "truly well educated."

I bow---even scrape---to your superior knowlege! Seems they are interchangable terms. So I lost one and won one---can't ask for more than that. 8=} I worried last night that I might have offended you with my picky corrections---glad that I didn't for you are one of SeniorNet's brightest stars. I always enjoy what you say (even when you are right!)

Phyll

My grandmother was born in 1895. The last child of 13, she had 10 brothers who were college graduates. Her only sister was a graduate of the Chicago Conservatory of Music. Gram had 4 years of Latin, four years of Greek, math through calculus, and graduated from high school at 16. Am I as well educated? No. In spite of my BA, I have no Greek, two years of Latin, 3 of French, but feel like my education was superficial, learning only enough to pass the mid-terms. That 8th grade examination made me cringe!

{{{{{PHYLL!}}}} My goodness what a nice thing to say! Don't you worry about offending, you just say what you think here in the Books we want to hear it!

I think you shine pretty well, yourself, we all shine here reflected in each others' light!

I sure had Selina hahahaha wrong, didn't I?

What did you think about that TEST it's FROM Kansas? I think you all have some pretty informed people out there.

Mahlia, I found to my shock when I had to write several notes that I can barely make the letters like I used to, it's amazing! My handwriting is all over the place, very sloppy. I need to get back in practice!

Mrs. Watson, I know what you mean, my mother had 8 years of Latin and she could SPELL! She could spell anything, she would sound it out in syllables. I canNOT spell anything any more, I hope that does not mean anything.

When you also consider the literacy level.... have you ever seen one of those McGuffy Readers? Incredible. They say the average newspaper in America is on the 5th grade level, did you know until recently that Word had a program on it which would tell you what grade level the text you were reading was?

I was always too afraid to put something I wrote into it and find out! hahahahaa

I think we know a lot now but we've lost some stuff too. Some of that stuff on that test is not relevant today or is it?

ginny

When you ask about education, do you mean formal education or do you mean the kind of education that people with good common sense have? Yes, I have a college degree. But my father who had only a 5th grade education (it was the depression and he had to help support his family). However, he was a master mechanic. I have lived in southwest Louisiana where I envy the 'Cajun's natural instincts and knowedge of nature. The same goes for many other people that I have met living in remote places of the southeast U.S. I think we have lost some of this wisdom by becoming too civilized.

Everything is relative. The caveman who discovered that he could cook with fire was more "educated" than all the cavemen before him. Considering what he did for those who followed him, was he more educated than we are or not?

Robby

I'm afraid I must take a much more curmudgeonly stance on this question. By "educated," clearly we do not mean simply smart. I've known many uneducated people who were quite intelligent.

When we lost grammar from grammar school, we kicked the old girl (get it, Gram--Mar<G>) out of lending us any help, should we ever be confronted with a really daunting foreign language, such as Latin, Greek, and Anglo-Saxon. Yes, Anglo-Saxon. I once watched in some amusement as some advanced students in English literature struggled with Anglo-Saxon. Having no knowledge of Latin, they found lurking therein five declensional cases. Yep, if you count the Instrumental, which is a sort of Ablative of Means, Anglo-Saxon, in much the same way as Latin, must be grammatically construed before it can be read. With no background in it, those students could only watch each sentence go by as one might watch a Nolan Ryan fast ball--they could see it go by, but could do nothing with it.

Since that time, things have gone from bad to worse. The linguistic approach that drove out anything like real grammar fails to take account of the radical difference between an inflected language and one in which grammar is word-order dependent. You simply must have in mind some construct that corresponds to a syntax before you have any hope of finding one where the word order is different from that of English. If you have a tin ear for the direct object, the indirect object, or the difference between an infinitive and a finite verb, you don't have a chance with Latin. The verb commonly ends the sentence, while the subject often comes first. And in poetry, anything can happen.

Not too long ago, I heard from California that youngsters were no longer being taught the multiplication tables.

The Sixth century was a marvel of educational prowess compared to what we have today. Back then, they thought no man truly educated unless he knew Greek. Today, although we have excellent methods available, there is diminishing interest even in Latin, to say nothing of Greek.

I'll have to throw in my own wrench, sorry 4-bears. I think the research question is flawed. I think it is similar to asking, are today's high school kids better drivers than their great-great-grandfathers were? Horse and buggy vs. automobile. I say the definition of education has not been established and probably has changed over time, so you cannot say who is less or more educated. You COULD say who knows more Latin and Greek, but that doesn't tell us anything, since most kids aren't offered the opportunity today. You COULD ask, "Is there a difference in the application value of education in 2001 as compared to 3 other stated times," but you'd have to determine first what 'application' means.

If we're looking at what percentage of children actually get ANY education, that's easier. I've seen charts showing that, around WWI, about 30 percent of children graduated from high school. Each decade since has shown a gradual increase. There must be tons of ways to measure education, including listing countries, today, where about 20 percent of the girls are allowed to attend school.

When I was a teenager, a friend of my parents told me she felt so lucky to be done with school because she wouldn’t have to learn about the new United Nations and all those complicated countries in Africa. The 8th graders in 1862 that were expected to answer those archaic questions were probably educated to the same degree as today’s eighth graders – but the context of life is so different that it seems almost exotic.

Today’s kids would be able to answer questions about el nino and acid rain instead of the temperatures of the Atlantic vs the Pacific coast. The 3 battles of the “rebellion” might sound foreign to our kids; but I bet they could carry on a dialogue about the “cold war” vs. the Korean “police action” vs. the Vietnam “conflict.” Also, I think they could come up with some kind of spread sheet or data base to analyze the nine rules for the use of capital letters, and they could work with a calculator to discover the cost of a farm or a mutual fund.

I do wonder, though, whatever the heck “caret ‘u’ ” is. Same as the earlier generation might have wondered what tv or a space shuttle or animal rights or birth control might be.

If education comes from 'educare' (to draw out) then it might mean the act of and the ability to draw out of our resources, including our individual selves, what is useful and life-enhancing. Thus education is not just the accumulation of information, but must include training in how to access needed information, how to process it logically and apply it rationally. Education should seek to draw out of us the talents we possess, help us to use and celebrate them.

While today's high school seniors may have access to more accumulated information, they rarely read on the same high level as the sixth graders at the turn of the 20th century. Due to the use of calculators in third grade, many of our young people don't learn the multiplication tables. We all know that many cashiers can't even make change without the cash register telling them electronically how much to give. Most dangerous of all to a free society, is rampant disinformation in our textbooks, especially in the area of history and politics. We can't learn from history if the information is deliberately skewed.

Critical thinking and research skills are basic tools for an educated person. Recognizing patterns of relationships, of cause and effect, of potential approaches to problem-solving, releasing creativity in all areas of life, appreciation of beauty and truth and what it is to be truly human - these are hallmarks of an educated person.

My mother graduated from high school. She taught herself a great deal about opera because she sang and loved music. My father did not graduate from high school. He taught himself enough about plumbing, electricity, carpentry and math to build houses.

My brother and I are the first generation of my family to graduate from college. My brother went to a university in New England on the ROTC. While in the Air Force he studied meteorology at MIT and received a master's degree in engineering.

I had three years of Latin, three years of French and two years of Italian in high school, math through calculus. My school stopped teaching classical Greek the year I entered, or I would have taken that, too.

I won a four year scholarship to study piano and voice at the New England Conservatory of Music when I was a freshman in high school. Four years later I won another scholarship to a fine women's college in New England. There I majored in music, studied theory, harmony, counterpoint, analysis and orchestral, solo instrument, and chamber music composition, had two more years of Italian, studied American, English and Italian literature and did all the scientific requisite work for my degree.

After graduating I studied Russian and French and more music. Nothing I ever studied in school taught me what I know about art and art history, the computer, building web pages or publishing electronic literary magazines, which is what I do today. Those things I learned by myself just as my mother and father learned what they knew before me. I would not be able to pass the 1895 test.

Mal

We can't learn from history if the information is deliberately skewed.

I've taught in universities in the Middle East and China and was appalled at the disinformation about the United States which the students had learned and were expected to believe with absolutely no free thinking or questions. I remember closing a book (in English) which had been provided for me so that I would have an idea of what my Iranian students had been studying in prepearation for my seminar and saying "Now then, we'll discuss the TRUTH." A few years later, the same incident was almost identically repeated in a classroom in China. Today, as I read through the newspapers of the Middle East (especially those in the Gulf region), I am absolutely astounded (much like I was in Iran and China) to read the absolutely blaring disinformation that is published as gospel for the readers. My husband (currently in Egypt) complains about this all the time.

In working with some international students in the USA, there is a lot of "re-education" that has to take place before they feel comfortable and adequately prepared to function well in an American classroom. Many are more advanced in math and science than average American students, but when it comes to knowledge about the world outside of those discplines, it's like dealing with elementary school students who have gotten really poor (and blatantly untruthful) instruction.

On the other hand, American students at all levels need to be encouraged to read more broadly, learn how to use math in their daily lives WITHOUT the calculators, and understand how learning in one discipline (like literature) can help them in another (science).

What is meant by "forebears" in the title? In the discussion group, "The Story of Civilization," we occasionally compare ourselves with the so-called "cavemen" or the age following them when they were smelting metals just as we do now.

Robby

If "forebears" means contemporary times as opposed to Robby's mention of pre-historic times, I think we in 20th/21st century America are less "classically" well educated; definitely less educated in the sciences (as clearly shown by the our public schools and the university admission statistics showing the increase in acceptance of foreign nationals over Americans in some disciplines); and in perhaps the most impotant area FOREIGN LANGUAGES. The latter has been a tremendous drawback for American diplomacy abroad; in the intelligence sector (as we have witnessed AGAIN recently); certainly in the international business sector; among the military; and in average society, where students speak numerous languages in American schools, often without adults nearby who understand them.

The following link poignantly attests to the lack of language skills, particularly in a public environment where cultural sensitivity and bilingual skills are essential.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12540-2001Nov11.html

I certainly agree that we are educating our children in the classical education mode, and I received only a smattering of such education (such as Latin & philosophy). That type of education can still take place outside of the classroom. In order to get along in today's world I think classroom time should be spent on more practical aspects of education. I do think foreign language and other than American culture should be in the classroom starting on the first day of kindergarten.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with Judy. I think we have completely abandoned the classical model. Our cohort (I graduated from high school in 1950) was the last to receive anything resembling a classical education. The classical mode included Latin, Greek, mathematics, exposure to Greek mythology, philosophy in addition to grammar and spelling. It had a pretty profound moral base. I suggest people who doubt this read through the McGuffey readers, gone from the schools before my time. The stories were used for content and for teaching morals. Today's readers are dull and frequently boring. You can argue either way that the classical mode was better or the much broader approach today is better. We have lost some things and gained others.

Good point, SWN, about the teaching of morals. Now that teaching morals has become "politically incorrect" so to speak, maybe we can't really expect the same classical style in education.

SWT, I agree with you about the readers. In fact I agree with you about the books for children, period. I don't know what they're thinking of, giving children books with no discernible plots or endings, even in the books for the youngest child, you get through and you say....SO? There's no reason to finish the book, there's no exciting story, I use the old Arbuthnot Anthology for giving children's books, there's nothing like it. I had to get it from a used book store but I'm sure glad to have it.

I have a friend teaching in elementary ed and they DO do some "morals" thing and attempt some sort of group lessons in all sorts of things. They brush their teeth, they give breakfast, they do a flouride swish, it's amazing what all the schools do now that ours never dreamed of. I bet if she were here what she would say would be a stunner.

My mother had 8 years of Latin and thought that was normal. She was born in 1908, and I expect she did read the McGuffy's, those things are something ELSE!

The biggest thing I notice is the lack of rhyme in children's stories. The Lobels Frog and Toad series rhymes but a lot of children's books do not. That's a shame, I think, because it causes the child to pay attention to the rhythm of the written language and words, or so I think, anyway.

ginny

I've just finished reading an article which states that several of the Ivy League universities do NOT require their undergraduates to take American or World History in order to graduate. This is a great disservice to the students! It reminds me of a discussion I had years ago with the Dean of Students at a Christian religious school. He criticized me for suggesting that students study non-Christian religions so that they would better understand how other people think and also to learn how to articulate their own beliefs when talking with people who did NOT share them. To me, comparative religion, comparative literature and History Through the Ages are all as important to a well developed education as are the more technical aspects of today's curricula.

Sometimes I think we forget that all education serves one purpose to give the student material so they can think! In that case I believe we need a broad based education in literature, arts, language and science. AND I am convinced we should encourage children to hold they can do and be something. My youngest (she is now 33) was interested in English as a student ( how could she avoid that with parents who believed in reading and conversation) but at that time she didnt think she wanted to go to college. Since she was expected to do so and we found a small college that believed in students she did go and graduate. As she has said a door opened in her mind when she was in college. Now after having a successful career as a business woman she feels a need to make up for the time "she wasted" while in High School and is looking into entering a local University and go for a master's in medival English. I am not sure what she will do with it but she has followed the rest of the family in believing it is never too late to improve.

Without one computer class I have taught myself how to use it and have grown with that use. There are many fields that can be self taught but unless you can read and understand you are at a loss. Typing is a skill I learned after I was an adult..self taught and I do pretty good if I do say so myself. BUT first I needed to know how to read, I needed to know how to interpret what I read. What I am saying we need to make sure students have good basic skills. I am still glad I can add, subtract etc in my head .even if I can use a calculator.

AND heavens I wish they still taught Palmer Method writing. AND I have thought it foolish to teach children to print first ...once you have conquered writing then printing is a easy. Every one of my children made a capital I by writing a cl...I could never tell what letter they were using.

My one son had a learning disability and was easily distracted by pictures in his text books. Frankly I think we spend too much time trying to make learning interesting when it is interesting in itself.

Oh well and when you get right down to it ...education is whatever you need to live. My brain is overtaxed right now ... anna

Good post Annafair!

I've been thinking about this question and have decided that I and my ancestors are equally educated; although the things we were educated in may be different. Even the education gained throughout life after our formal schooling was over is different: my ancestors never learned how to use a computer for example, and there are things they knew that pertained to everyday life which I have no knowledge or need of.

I've been educated but somehow remember few of the facts that had been imprinted in my head just long enough for me to pass exams. What did stick were the ways of finding any information I need. I guess it is not the facts but where to find them that is important in being educated.

Just a few thoughts

education must change also, and even though the subjects being taught change, the things that should NOT and should NEVER change are mentioned above--where to find the information you seek, how to read and interpret it, and basic critical thinking, an appreciation for curiosity and a love of learning. If you have those under your belt I think you can figure everything else out because the mind wants to learn. I also believe that these days we spend too much time on trivial subjects, things that should be taught in the home instead of in the schools, and parrotting a lot of facts instead of learning how to dissect something to get at the truth.

At the same time, I think in every generation there have been people who are average and get along in life with minimal teaching, and there are those who always seek for more and better answers, no matter if their society wants them to "fit in" and be like everybody else. And I've found that people who love to read tend to educate themselves whether or not they have been to a university. Reading requires the mind to be active, unlike TV where everything is simply fed to you, and reading requires a person to think. The only thing that scares me is that in a world where knowledge is more important than ever, the average reading level of the population seems to be going down and most people get their information from TV and accept it without too much critical thinking. That, to me is a dangerous way of doing things because the dissemination of information is in the hands of the very few, and the ones who have the money to disseminate it. As for the internet, there is more information there than the average person will ever use, but much of it is trivia and sometimes outright false, and critical thinking is required to determine fact from fiction.

I read a statistic once that was fascinating about how times have changed. It seems that in the middle ages change was so slow that a person could go through a whole lifetime without ever having to learn much that was new or different. Today we learn more in an average day than most people learned in a whole lifetime in the middle ages. (except for Leonardo daVinci, who had the kind of mind I'm talking about--currently reading a book about him. LOL)

Years ago I believe we got a better education of the time because not as many people went on to a higher education. What was taught were things that people could retain their whole lives. Much of what we learned in Higher education we did not retain other than the things that pertained to the kind of jobs we took. living in a University town I am amazed when you are with a crowd of supposingly well educated people just how little some of them know and how limited their conversation goes. But even in the grade and high schools I don't think that now they are taught some of the things that they should be. Not enough English,Math,Geog.(this is really bad). and people do not read books as much as we did and like many in this discussion still do. I would give up everything modern. TV.computers, etc before I would give up books. I go to the library a lot and notice more and more computers coming in and children lining up to use them and not for educational, but then when they leave you never see them checking out books but Plenty of movies and music CD. So much they are missing.

JeanneP

This discussion is being moved to Archives. Thank you all for participating.