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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Carragher who wrote (223701)	10/12/2007 10:43:48 AM
From: koan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793550

John, I do not know about you, but when I entered college I had a view of the world that was not very realistic or sophisticated. I didn't even know what the word society meant. I thought it meant high society. It took me a week to write a five hundred word paper. Today I can dictate it in two minutes and in final form. Four years later, after I graduated from undergraduate work, I had metamorphased into a completely different person. I went from never hearing of existenialism to embracing its ideas. Both of my daughters said the same thing happened to them. What college does that is so important is it introduces you to the wisdom of the world. Not just one culture's wisdom, or one way of thinking, but all the great minds of the world and all the wisdom of all cultures. It also forces you to read books you would never read. Like the Republic of Plato. Even more interesting, I found, is that most of my Jewish friends hated college as they had to work so hard. their culture does not allow c students-lol, or the Japanese. But once on learns the wisdom of all cultures it changes their life for ever. One can never go back to the old way of thinking. There seems to be a critical mass whereby once one learns a certian amount, they just keep on learning, but it takes a certain amount fo knowledge. The other thing college gives is the constant debate whereby one can hone their facts and logic. Scientific American a few months ago had a piece on the expert mind. They studied chess players. They found the mind builds software and it takes about 10 years. More time than to train a brain surgeon. So minds are developed more than they are born. Intelligence, per se, is a matter of learning. One is not born knowing how to think they have to learn. Some people can do that without college, especially if they are readers, but most cannot. I was the only one in my family to go to college and I just stumbled into it as I worked in a paper bag factory for several years after high school first. It changed my life so profoundly I cannot even imagine life without it. My two daughters are the same and my younger one who is starting graduate work in environmental science at the U of Oregon has started correcting my knowledge and logic. Which I love-lol. She is very gentle with me though-lol.