tedrick@ernie.berkeley.edu (Tom Tedrick) (03/23/86)
>You presume a correlation between the number of school years and >"minds of our own" that is very doubtful. I've met with people of >various educational background - and have never noticed the rela- >tionship. Rather, it went the other way - educated people tend >to be more influenced by intellectual fads and to believe things >just because they are in print. > >I am not saying education precludes independent thought; both >are desirable and some people combine them. >The best way to do it is to *learn* rather than *be taught* : >i.e., self-education. Education is supposed to be as you said, a process of self-discovery. The teacher is supposed to facilitate the process. Unfortunately the world is full of incompetent teachers who "teach at the students". And schools are used for social conditioning sometimes. The development of the capacity for independent thought can be assisted by the study of logic. I would say that an understanding of logic is the greatest advantage the educated have over the uneducated. Primarily in being able to dismiss a lot of nonsense as absurd purely on logical grounds.