on 2/9/03 2:58 PM, ReinholdLetschert2@xxxxxxxxxx at
ReinholdLetschert2@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> On 9 Feb 2003 at 11:11, Winsor Crosby wrote:
>
>> The world seems to be divided into two camps, those who think that
>> college should be a trade school and those who think that it is a place
>> to get an education. They are not the same thing, nor do they have the
>> same value.
>>
> In Robert M Pirsig's "ZEN and the art of motorcycle maintenance"
> is a professor's statement: "Eliminate the whole degree-and-grading
> system and you get real education". Two pages further a student's
> statement: "Of course you can't eliminate the degree and grading
> system. After all, that's what we're here for." Subsequently Pirsig
> argues the case for advancing from a grade motivated person to a
> knowledge motivated person. Faszinating reading.
>
> Now, isn't the knowledge motivation one of the reasons for taking
> part in - for example - this OM-list?
> ---
> Reinhold
Well, as a former 'professional student' I'll jump in here... I spent a
whole lot of time in school, waiting to discover what I wanted to 'do with
my life'. Never happened. Turns out the best thing I learned in school was
how to learn stuff, now I'm trying to explore new things that interest me
and learn about them.
If you go to school with the desire to 'get a degree, then get a job' I
think you miss the real value of the educational experience. Further, many
people go to college seeking -what- to think, instad of -how- to think. The
best thing you can get from college is a set of tools for solving problems
be they personal, business, political or other... Thinking you already know
the answers is what gets a lot of people into more trouble, when they find
out that the world is full of shades of gray and 'partly right' answers, and
not nice clear easy decisions. Tradeoffs and choices are the rule, not the
exception, and a real education gives you the tools for picking *your* best
path along the chain of desisions that constitute your life.
Everyone's path is different, so a college education that hands you a map
without teaching you how to navigate is not going to work. It only took me
12 years of college to figure out all this... <g>!
--
Jim Brokaw
OM-'s of all sorts, and no OM-oney...
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