Having a degree… being ‘educated’

Having a degree and being educated are not the same thing.

Edmund D. Pelligrino¹ spoke about this at the beginning of this decade. He cautioned that ‘the degree today is only a certificate of exposure, not a guarantee of infection.” [He is a trained physician and bioethicist.]

He goes on to suggest a ‘test’, a set of self-reflective questions,” that may “indicate whether your mind operates like an educated one―no matter what your major may have been.” They are:

1. “Have learned how to learn from your teacher? Can you work up a new subject, find the information, and express it in your own language? Can you discern which are your teacher’s thoughts and which are your own?
2. Can you ask critical questions, no matter what the subject is before you―those questions that expose the line of argument, evaluate the claims being made upon you, the evidence adduced, the logic employed? Can you sift fact from opinion, the plausible from the proven, the rhetorical from the logical? Can you use skepticism as a constructive tool and not as refuge for intellectual sloth? Do you apply the same critical rigor to your own thoughts and actions? Or are you merely rearranging your prejudices when you think you are thinking?
3. Do you really understand what you are reading, what people are saying, what words they are using? Is your language clear, concrete and concise? Are you acquainted with the literature of your own language―with its structure and nuance?
4. Are your actions your own―based in an understanding and a commitment to values you can defend? Can you discern the value conflicts underlying personal and public choices and distinguish what is compromise to principle and what is not? Is your approach to moral judgments reasoned or emotional? When all the facts are in, when the facts are doubtful and action must be taken, can you choose wisely, prudently, and reasonably?
5. Can you form your own reasoned judgments about works of art―whether a novel, sonata, sculpture, or painting? Or are you enslaved by the critic, the book reviewer, and the “opinion makers” vacillating with their fads and pretentiousness? Is your imagination free enough to respond sensitively, or are you among the multitude who demand the explicitness of violence, pornography, dialog―that is the sure sign of a dead imagination and an impoverished creativity?
6. Are your political opinions of the same order as your school and athletic loyalties―rooting for your side and ignoring the issues and ideas your side propounds? Do you make your insight as an expert the measure of social need?”

Take time to answer these questions now. Take some time, no, MAKE some time periodically to review ‘retake the test’ as you develop a wisdom generated by your education accommodating conscious personal change.

Pelligrino continues: “Education is thought of not as just imparting the knowledge of a professional discipline, but also demonstrating a certain way of life―a way of life which is humane and thoughtful, yet also critical and above all rational.

How far along this ‘way’ are you? When was the last time you ‘tested out’.

¹ All quotes from: Edmund D. Pelligino, “Having a Degree and Being Educated”, found in: Orientation to College: A Reader on Becoming and Educated Person, Second Edition, edited by Elizabeth Steltnpohl, Jane Shipton and Sharon Villines (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thompson Learning, 2004), pp.63-66.