What does it mean to be truly educated?
Classically, Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin believed that the university and education in general should enable students to become autonomous individuals and world citizens by developing their own reasoning powers in an environment of academic freedom.
Our teachers used to say
It’s not important what we cover in the class it’s important what you discover
Being truly educated means –
- to be in a position to inquire and create on the basis of the resources available to you which you’ve come to appreciate and comprehend
- to know where to look to know how to form formulate serious questions
- to question a standard doctrine, if that’s appropriate
- to find your own way to shape the questions that are worth pursuing
- to develop the path to pursue them that means knowing understanding many things
- much more important than what you have stored in your mind is to know where to look how to look how to question how to challenge how to proceed independently to deal with the challenges that the world presents to you
- you develop in the course of your self education and inquiry and the investigations in cooperation and solidarity with others
That’s what an educational system should cultivate from kindergarten to the graduate school.
