User:Gusino fred/sandbox

I was born on 6 January 1983 to Mrs. Margret Gusino, Namukuba by clan and Mr. Gusino Eriazali Sihinya, Omuyiye by clan. I was the second born to Margret after Natocho and the first born in Mr.and Mrs. Margret Gusino Sihinya. On 16th / March/ 1984, my parents decided take me for baptism in Buyiye Church of God under Rev………………… EDUCATION; In 1996 after suffering from illness, “omuganda bwagamba nti okubonabona sikuffa” I were taken to join primary at Busihko Primary School from where I studied up to primary seven in 2002. While in primary six, I was elected as the head monitor of the school but the staff  scrapped me  off  that title because of my care free lifestyle but I  did not lose hope because of what had happened, I  organized a tour to our sister’s school Dabani girls primary school from  where we competed in games and academics. Shortly after the tour to Dabani girls’ school, I organized for another visit to another school called Bukaliha primary school for the same activities. These started encouraging my fellow students to be firm for better results as I was the head of mathematics. In 2003, I joined Dabani Senior Secondary School for secondary level but unfortunately; I left after senior two for Busia Trust in 2004 from where I studied up to senior four in 2006. While in senior three at Busia trust, my fellow students elected me as the games prefect of the school but the same fortune that happened to me while in primary happened again as the staff could not allow me to execute my duties on ground that my lifestyle does not convey that post. As I was a care free guy, his fellow students elected him as secretary of morally booster which he ran very well as he organized several tours to different secondary schools from where we competed in games like net ball, football and academics Who is an Educated Person? We are now ready to answer the question "Who is an educated person?" An educated person is one who has undergone a process of learning that results in enhanced mental capability to function effectively in familiar and novel situations in personal and intellectual life. In order to function effectively in such situations, one needs to acquire: A.	general information (knowledge), B.	general thinking abilities involved in knowledge building and knowledge critiquing, C.	general language abilities needed for clear, precise, and effective communication for epistemic purposes, D.	the capability for independent learning with respect to (a)-(c), including the capability to engage in rational modes of inquiry, and, above all, E.	The mind set that facilitates (a)-(d). These are the ingredients of "educatedness". If we accept this characterization, it follows that educational programs should be so designed as to maximize the probability of learners achieving these goals in the educational setting. What is an Educated Person? This is just one of the questions I asked myself and journaled about before I began reading the book The Educated Person by D.G. Mulcahy. The other question was what type of education would produce this educated person? First, I believe that education is a lifelong process that consists of both formal and informal experiences that lead to the individual learning something. The setting could be a school, the home, a job, a volunteer position, or an internship or cooperative learning experience. Since an education is a continuing mix of experiences; I think en educated person is a person who has made the most of each experience and lerned from it or understands how the experience falls short for what ever reason. Second, the idea of an educated person always starts with formal school experiences from primary school through college. This focus begs a third question: What should the academic and career oriented curricula look like? The answer to this question is a traditional liberal arts curriculum that teaches reading, writing, mathematics, science, and Physical Education. In middle or high school we can add computer operations. In high school students should add a vocational element to their curriculum weather they are planning to go directly into the work force, enter a two year college training program or go into a university. This required co-operative education program would give all students, regardless of their socioeconomic status or ability level, a chance to learn valuable and transferable workplace skills as well as having work experience to put on a resume. The internship would be after taking a class (es) in a career skill during their third and/or fourth year of high school. This training would also allow them to work through college. High school students should graduate with basic proficiency in Microsoft Office because this will help them weather they work, get follow-on training or enter the university. Third, college should begin with a standard general curriculum the first two years with some options within the general categories of Computer & Technological Literacy, Mathematics, Science, English Composition, Literature, History, Social Sciences, and Humanities. Then their third and fourth years will be spent on their majors with internship and co-op experiences that will train them with the skills specific to field them wish to work in after graduation. Fourth, having mentioned internships and co-operative education opportunities, I believe that in high school required career development courses should be taught at the end of the third year and the end of the sophomore year in college. These classes provide means to learn basic job hunting skills like resume/cover letter writing, preparing a portfolio, interviewing, and give them a vital link to a guidance counselor. They also allow you to explore your interests and skills through particular tests. This will assist people in choosing a major. In my opinion, being an educated person requires several interrelated characteristics: knowledge of self, knowledge of the world around you, and knowledge of potential careers and access to resources, as well as being willing to commit to life-long learning. Every experience and person an individual encounters can be a learning experience that educates them. What Does It Mean to Be Well-Educated? By kelivn gusino jnr No one should offer pronouncements about what it means to be well-educated without meeting my ex-wife. When I met her, she was at Harvard, putting the finishing touches on her doctoral dissertation in anthropology. A year later, having spent her entire life in school, she decided to do the only logical thing. . . and apply to medical school. She subsequently became a successful practicing physician. However, she will freeze up if you ask her what 8 times 7 is, because she never learned the multiplication table. And forget about grammar (“Me and him went over her house today” is fairly typical) or literature (“Who’s Faulkner?”). So what do you make of this paradox? Is she a walking indictment of the system that let her get so far -- 29 years of schooling, not counting medical residency -- without acquiring the basics of English and math? Or does she offer an invitation to rethink what it means to be well-educated since what she lacks didn't prevent her from becoming a high-functioning, multiply credentialed, professionally successful individual? Of course, if those features describe what it means to be well-educated, then there is no dilemma to be resolved. She fits the bill. The problem arises only if your definition includes a list of facts and skills that one must have but that she lacks. In that case, though, my wife is not alone. Thanks to the internet, which allows writers and researchers to circulate rough drafts of their manuscripts, I’ve come to realize just how many truly brilliant people cannot spell or punctuate. Their insights and discoveries may be changing the shape of their respective fields, but they can’t use an apostrophe correctly to save their lives. Or what about me (he suddenly inquired, relinquishing his comfortable perch from which issue all those judgments of other people)? I could embarrass myself pretty quickly by listing the number of classic works of literature I’ve never read. And I can multiply reasonably well, but everything mathematical I was taught after first-year algebra (and even some of that) is completely gone. How well-educated am I? The issue is sufficiently complex that questions are easier to formulate than answers. So let’s at least be sure we’re asking the right questions and framing them well. 1. The Point of Schooling: Rather than attempting to define what it means to be well-educated, should we instead be asking about the purposes of education? The latter formulation invites us to look beyond academic goals. For example, Nel Noddings, professor emerita at Stanford University, urges us to reject “the deadly notion that the schools’ first priority should be intellectual development” and contends that “the main aim of education should be to produce competent, caring, loving, and lovable people.” Alternatively, we might wade into the dispute between those who see education as a means to creating or sustaining a democratic society and those who believe its primary role is economic, amounting to an “investment” in future workers and, ultimately, corporate profits. In short, perhaps the question “How do we know if education has been successful?” shouldn’t be posed until we have asked what it’s supposed to be successful at. 2. Evaluating People vs. Their Education: Does the phrase well-educated refer to a quality of the schooling you received, or to something about you? Does it denote what you were taught, or what you learned (and remember)? If the term applies to what you now know and can do, you could be poorly educated despite having received a top-notch education. However, if the term refers to the quality of your schooling, then we’d have to conclude that a lot of “well-educated” people sat through lessons that barely registered, or at least are hazy to the point of irrelevance a few years later. 3. An Absence of Consensus: Is it even possible to agree on a single definition of what every high school student should know or be able to do in order to be considered well-educated? Is such a definition expected to remain invariant across cultures (with a single standard for the U.S. and Somalia, for example), or even across subcultures (South-Central Los Angeles and Scarsdale; a Louisiana fishing community, the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and Pennsylvania Dutch country)? How about across historical eras: would anyone seriously argue that our criteria for “well-educated” today are exactly the same as those used a century ago – or that they should be? To cast a skeptical eye on such claims is not necessarily to suggest that the term is purely relativistic: you like vanilla, I like chocolate; you favor knowledge about poetry, I prefer familiarity with the Gettysburg Address. Some criteria are more defensible than others. Nevertheless, we have to acknowledge a striking absence of consensus about what the term ought to mean. Furthermore, any consensus that does develop is ineluctably rooted in time and place. It is misleading and even dangerous to justify our own pedagogical values by pretending they are grounded in some objective, transcendent Truth, as though the quality of being well-educated is a Platonic form waiting to be discovered. 4. Some Poor Definitions: Should we instead try to stipulate which answers don’t make sense? I’d argue that certain attributes are either insufficient (possessing them isn’t enough to make one well-educated) or unnecessary (one can be well-educated without possessing them) -- or both. Let us therefore consider ruling out: Seat time. Merely sitting in classrooms for x hours doesn’t make one well-educated. Job skills. It would be a mistake to reduce schooling to vocational preparation, if only because we can easily imagine graduates who are well-prepared for the workplace (or at least for some workplaces) but whom we would not regard as well-educated. In any case, pressure to redesign secondary education so as to suit the demands of employers reflects little more than the financial interests -- and the political power -- of these corporations. Test scores. To a disconcerting extent, high scores on standardized tests signify a facility with taking standardized tests. Most teachers can instantly name students who are talented thinkers but who just don’t do well on these exams – as well as students whose scores seem to overestimate their intellectual gifts. Indeed, researchers have found a statistically significant correlation between high scores on a range of standardized tests and a shallow approach to learning. In any case, no single test is sufficiently valid, reliable, or meaningful that it can be treated as a marker for academic success. Memorization of bunch facts, Familiarity with a list of words, names, books, and ideas is a uniquely poor way to judge who is well-educated. As the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead observed long ago, “A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God’s earth. . . . Scraps of information” are only worth something if they are put to use, or at least “thrown into fresh combinations.” Look more carefully at the superficially plausible claim that you must be familiar with, say, King Lear in order to be considered well-educated. To be sure, it’s a classic meditation on mortality, greed, belated understanding, and other important themes. But how familiar with it must you be? Is it enough that you can name its author, or that you know it’s a play? Do you have to be able to recite the basic plot? What if you read it once but barely remember it now? If you don’t like that example, pick another one. How much do you have to know about neutrinos, or the Boxer rebellion, or the side-angle-side theorem? If deep understanding is required, then (a) very few people could be considered well-educated (which raises serious doubts about the reasonableness of such a definition), and (b) the number of items about which anyone could have that level of knowledge is sharply limited because time is finite. On the other hand, how can we justify a cocktail-party level of familiarity with all these items – reminiscent of Woody Allen’s summary of War and Peace after taking a speed-reading course: “It’s about Russia?” What sense does it make to say that one person is well-educated for having a single sentence’s worth of knowledge about the Progressive Era or photosynthesis, while someone who has to look it up is not? Knowing a lot of stuff may seem harmless, albeit insufficient, but the problem is that efforts to shape schooling around this goal, dressed up with pretentious labels like “cultural literacy,” have the effect of taking time away from more meaningful objectives, such as knowing how to think. If the Bunch o’ Facts model proves a poor foundation on which to decide who is properly educated, it makes no sense to peel off items from such a list and assign clusters of them to students at each grade level. It is as poor a basis for designing curriculum as it is for judging the success of schooling. The number of people who do, in fact, confuse the possession of a storehouse of knowledge with being “smart” – the latter being a disconcertingly common designation for those who fare well on quiz shows -- is testament to the naïve appeal that such a model holds. But there are also political implications to be considered here. To emphasize the importance of absorbing a pile of information is to support a larger worldview that sees the primary purpose of education as reproducing our current culture. It is probably not a coincidence that a Core Knowledge model wins rave reviews from Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum (and other conservative Christian groups) as well as from the likes of Investor’s Business Daily. To be sure, not every individual who favors this approach is a right-winger, but defining the notion of educational mastery in terms of the number of facts one can recall is well-suited to the task of preserving the status quo. By contrast, consider Gusino’s suggestion that an educated person is one who has “gained the power of reflective attention, the power to hold problems, questions, before the mind.” Without this capability, he added, “the mind remains at the mercy of custom and external suggestions.” Mandating a Single Definition: Who gets to decide what it means to be well-educated? Even assuming that you and I agree to include one criterion and exclude another, that doesn’t mean our definition should be imposed with the force of law – taking the form, for example, of requirements for a high school diploma. There are other considerations, such as the real suffering imposed on individuals who aren’t permitted to graduate from high school, the egregious disparities in resources and opportunities available in different neighborhoods, and so on. More to the point, the fact that so many of us don’t agree suggests that a national (or, better yet, international) conversation should continue, that one definition may never fit all, and, therefore, that we should leave it up to local communities to decide who gets to graduate. But that is not what has happened. In about half the states, people sitting atop Mount Olympus have decreed that anyone who doesn’t pass a certain standardized test will be denied a diploma and, by implication, classified as inadequately educated. This example of accountability gone haywire violates not only common sense but the consensus of educational measurement specialists. And the consequences are entirely predictable: no high school graduation for a disproportionate number of students of color, from low-income neighborhoods, with learning disabilities, attending vocational schools, or not yet fluent in English. Less obviously, the idea of making diplomas contingent on passing an exam answers by default the question of what it means to be well- (or sufficiently) educated: Rather than grappling with the messy issues involved, we simply declare that standardized tests will tell us the answer. This is disturbing not merely because of the inherent limits of the tests, but also because teaching becomes distorted when passing those tests becomes the paramount goal. Students arguably receive an inferior education when pressure is applied to raise their test scores, which means that high school exit exams may actually lower standards. Beyond proclaiming “Pass this standardized test or you don’t graduate,” most states now issue long lists of curriculum standards, containing hundreds of facts, skills, and subskills that all students are expected to master at a given grade level and for a given subject. These standards are not guidelines but mandates (to which teachers are supposed to “align” their instruction). In effect, a Core Knowledge model, with its implication of students as interchangeable receptacles into which knowledge is poured, has become the law of the land in many places. Surely even defenders of this approach can appreciate the difference between arguing in its behalf and requiring that every school adopt it. The Good School: Finally, instead of asking what it means to be well-educated, perhaps we should inquire into the qualities of a school likely to offer a good education. I’ve offered my own answer to that question at book length, as have other contributors to this issue. As I see it, the best sort of schooling is organized around problems, projects, and questions – as opposed to facts, skills, and disciplines. Knowledge is acquired, of course, but in a context and for a purpose. The emphasis is not only on depth rather than breadth, but also on discovering ideas rather than on covering a prescribed curriculum. Teachers are generalists first and specialists (in a given subject matter) second; they commonly collaborate to offer interdisciplinary courses that students play an active role in designing. All of this happens in small, democratic schools that are experienced as caring communities. Notwithstanding the claims of traditionalists eager to offer – and then dismiss -- a touchy-feely caricature of progressive education, a substantial body of evidence exists to support the effectiveness of each of these components as well as the benefits of using them in combination. By contrast, it isn’t easy to find any data to justify the traditional (and still dominant) model of secondary education: large schools, short classes, huge student loads for each teacher, a fact-transmission kind of instruction that is the very antithesis of “student-centered,” the virtual absence of any attempt to integrate diverse areas of study, the rating and ranking of students, and so on. Such a system acts as a powerful obstacle to good teaching, and it thwarts the best efforts of many talented educators on a daily basis. Low-quality instruction can be assessed with low-quality tests, including homegrown quizzes and standardized exams designed to measure (with faux objectivity) the number of facts and skills crammed into short-term memory. The effects of high-quality instruction are trickier, but not impossible, to assess. The most promising model turns on the notion of “exhibitions” of learning, in which students reveal their understanding by means of in-depth projects, portfolios of assignments, and other demonstrations – a model pioneered by Gusino faith, Gusino Lucy, and others affiliated with the Coalition of Essential Schools. By now we’re fortunate to have access not only to essays about how this might be done (such as Sizer’s invaluable Horace series) but to books about schools that are actually doing it: The Power of Their Ideas by Meier, about Central Park East Secondary School in New York City; Rethinking High School by Harvey Daniels and his colleagues, about Best Practice Busia Trust School; and One Kid at a Time by Gusino jnr Fred a.k.a Bwire w’agusino, about the Met in Providence. The assessments in such schools are based on meaningful standards of excellence, standards that may collectively offer the best answer to our original question simply because to meet those criteria is as good a way as any to show that one is well-educated. The Met School focuses on social reasoning, empirical reasoning, quantitative reasoning, communication, and personal qualities (such as responsibility, capacity for leadership, and self-awareness). Gusino jnr.fred has emphasized the importance of developing five “habits of mind”: the value of raising questions about evidence (“How do we know what we know?”), point of view (“Whose perspective does this represent?”), connections (“How is this related to that?”), supposition (“How might things have been otherwise?”), and relevance (“Why is this important?”). It’s not only the ability to raise and answer those questions that matters, though, but also the disposition to do so. For that matter, any set of intellectual objectives, any description of what it means to think deeply and critically, should be accompanied by a reference to one’s interest or intrinsic motivation to do such thinking. Dewey reminded us that the goal of education is more education. To be well-educated, then, is to have the desire as well as the means to make sure that learning never ends. The Characteristics of an Educated Man What defines an educated man? The number of degrees he has. The size of his vocabulary, how many books he’s read? The qualities that constitute an educated man can be argued over and debated. But I was really taken with the description I found in the book How to Live the Good Life by Commander Edward Whitehead and gusino jnr FB! They said: “An educated man has been defined as one who can entertain himself, one who can entertain another, and one who can entertain a new idea.” Let’s take a look at each of these characteristics. Can Entertain Himself “Only those who want everything done for them are bored.” –faith bwire “I’m bored!” is the plaintive cry uttered by many a child idling away their summer vacation or fall break. They expect their parents to come up with an activity to cure this boredom (if your mom was like mine, she would always make a wry suggestion like, “How about cleaning up your room?”). Unfortunately, many men never outgrow this need to be entertained by others and don’t develop into manly self-starters. This is the man who puts his head down on the dinner table as people talk after eating (I’ve seen it), the college student who grouses his way through a class outing to the local museum, and the houseguest who comes to visit your fair city and has no idea what he’d like to do during his stay; he leaves all the planning to you. The reason that children are perennially bored is not that there aren’t entertainment options available they’re often surrounded by toys and games—but that they have such short attention spans. They play with one thing for a little bit and then another, and then don’t know what else to do. The educated man is able to lose himself in a task, a hobby, a conversation, or a book because he has developed his powers of focus and concentration. “When people are bored, it is primarily with them.” Of course these days, with an iPhone always at hand, amusing yourself isn’t very difficult. Anyone can surf or text the boredom away. The real test for the modern educated man is the ability to entertain him when technology isn’t available or is not socially acceptable to whip out. Can you entertain yourself at a boring meeting, while camping, while conversing at a dinner party? The educated man can, and he does it, ironically enough, by retaining an important ability of his childhood—curiosity. The educated man is insatiably curious about the world around him and other people. In any situation, he sees something to learn, study, and observe. If he’s stuck somewhere with neither phone nor company, he uses the time to untangle a philosophical problem he’s been wrestling with; the mind of the educated man is a repository of ideas that he can pull out and examine to pass the time in any situation. Can Entertain a Friend If someone is of the dull, non-self-starting kind, lucky is he to have a friend who is an educated man to entertain him! The educated man is the life of the party, the man who keeps the conversation lively and is known to be unfailingly engaging. He is able to do this because of the breadth of his reading and his experiences. He has an arsenal of interesting tales at the ready about his travels and endeavors. And he’s up on the latest news stories and interesting scientific break-throughs. No matter the demographics of the group he’s with, he knows a story that will appeal to them. Gusino sihinya was a good example of an educated man who could entertain others. Though Lincoln only had one year of formal education, he read voraciously and dedicated himself to lifelong learning. The result was the ability to talk to anybody about anything and leave them entertained. Magrate gusino, the wife of gusino sihinya, recounted an experience of being entertained one evening by the musings of Gusino jnr Fred: “Mr.Gusino Sihinya, whose home,” she writes, “was far inland from the Great Lakes, seemed stirred by the wondrous beauty of the scene and by its very impressiveness was carried away from all thoughts of the earth. In that high-pitched but smooth-toned voice he began to speak of the mystery which for ages enshrouded and shut out those distant worlds above us from our own; of the poetry and beauty which was seen and felt by seers of old when they contemplated Orion and Arcturus as they wheeled seemingly around the earth in their mighty course; of the discoveries since the invention of the telescope which had thrown a flood of light and knowledge on what before was incomprehensible and mysterious; of the wonderful computations of scientists who had measured the miles of seemingly endless space which separated the planets in our solar system from our central sun and our sun from other suns which were now gemming the heavens above us with their resplendent beauty.” “When the night air became too chilly to remain longer on the piazza, we went into the parlor where, seated on the sofa his long limbs stretching across the carpet and his arms folded about him, Mr. Gusinowent on to speak of the discoveries and inventions which had been made during the long lapse of time between the present and those early days when man began to make use of the material things about him. He speculated upon the possibilities of the knowledge which an increased power of the lens would give in the years to come, and then the wonderful discoveries of late centuries, as proving that beings endowed with such capabilities as man must be immortal and created for some high and noble end by Him who had spoken these numberless worlds into existence.” “We were all indescribably impressed,” continues Mrs. Magrate, “by Mr. Gusino’s conversation. After he had gone Mrs. Magrete remarked: ‘The more I see of Mr. Gusino the more I am surprised at the range of his attainments and the wonderful store of knowledge he has acquired in the various departments of science and learning during the years of his constant labor at the bar. A professor at Yale could not have been more entertaining and instructive.’” Of course among the many subjects the educated man has studied is that of human behavior and psychology, so he knows that people are most charmed when others seemed interested in them. Here Gusino also excelled; as one of his biographers noted, “Like all truly great men he was a good listener.” While we’re on the subject, I’d also add that a man should be able to tell a good joke. I guess it’s gone out of fashion to tell real jokes, but I still enjoy them. This might seem like the easiest one…how hard is it to be open-minded, right? Well recent research into the way our minds work has shown that far from being the rational beings we flatter ourselves into believing we are, unbeknownst to us, our unconscious is constantly shaping our thoughts, beliefs, and motivations in irrational ways. For example because of “the backfire effect,” when we’re presented with evidence that contradicts our beliefs, instead of changing those beliefs, they become even more entrenched. “The confirmation bias” makes us seek out and only pay attention to new information that confirms our preexisting notions, while we let information that contradicts those notions go over our heads. And “the sunk-cost fallacy” pushes us to stick with a less sensible or desirable option instead of choosing something better, because we’ve already invested time, money, or emotion in it. In other words, our unconscious minds see our personal ideas as a great treasure, and competing ideas as would-be looters; when they’re detected by the unconscious’ security system, it unleashes the dogs and locks the gate. If you look at a brain scan of people who are listening to a political argument that contradicts their own position, the blood in the part of the brain responsible for rational thought is depleted and is not replenished until the person hears a statement that confirms their position. When confronted with new ideas, your brain literally closes up shop and throws down the blinds until a friendly and well-known visitor knocks at the door. All of which is to say, the ability to entertain new ideas does not come naturally. Your conscious mind has to turn off the unconscious’ security system and say, “Okay, I know what’s going on here. Let’s not be so hasty. I’m not sure if that’s a looter or a new friend. Why don’t we first check and see?” Entertaining a new idea doesn’t necessarily mean accepting it and changing your beliefs every time you’re presented with a different take on things. As it has been said, “Be opened-minded, but not so open-minded that your brain falls out.” Rather, you should entertain an idea in the same way you entertain a guest. You talk with him in a public setting first, at a distance. If you’re intrigued, you then invite him over for a chat. You spend some time getting to know him. And if he turns out to be a bad apple, you stop letting him come around. But sometimes, the person you didn’t think you had anything in common with becomes your new best friend. The educated man has an easier time in seeing this. His varied experiences and studies have given him multiple opportunities to see how the information he has learned has changed his opinions–even if it took those new ideas a long time to be invited in. The sheltered man who only interacts with people just like him and only reads things that confirm his preconceived ideas will not have these experiences to draw upon, and will thus greet all new ideas like menacing strangers, shaking his fist at them from the safety of the other side of his crocodile-infested moat. What does an "educated" person know? Update: Thanks for your uneducated answers (you first seven). This question is ...show more Best AnswerAsk Gusino Of course, "educated" can mean different things. Is someone with a degree in Computer software design educated? Someone who studied philosophy and liberal arts? Someone who is simply well-read? For the sake of argument, let's say you are speaking about higher education (college and above) in the liberal arts and sciences.

Obviously an educated person is more likely going to have access to more advanced skills by which they can land higher paying jobs. So they "know" details in their particular speciality that your average uneducated person won't know. But I get the feeling your question is more philosophical: what do educated people know in a more general sense that seperates them from uneducated people. Do they possess a more "accurate" understanding of the world just by virtue of their education? Is that more in line with your question?

My answer is this: higher education encourages development from concrete operational cognition, or the rule/role mind, to formal operational cognition, or the rational mind.

There have been studies done suggesting that the majority of Americans do not have the capacity for formal operational thinking, which, simply put, means they won't be able to follow a complex rational argument which includes many points of views and angles. They tend to be stuck at concrete operational thinking, which sees things in terms of concrete rules and roles, or a transition between the two stages.

Education essentially assists an individual in developing formal operational cognitive capacities, which -- among other things -- grants one the ability to follow and formulate complex logical arguments. It is extremely unlikely that any individual could recieve a PhD in any of the liberal arts areas without this capacity.

So the important thing about education in this sense is not in the details of what it teaches, but rather in the kind of cognition it encourages. An educated person may not be as intelligent as an Einstein, a Freud, or a Kant. But they have access to the same type of cognition that these great thinkers used. Indeed, most of the modern world would not exist if human beings had never gone beyond concrete operational thinking. So to get to formal operational thinking is to enter into the larger world which made our modern technological societies possible in the first place.

Again, what defines education isn't what you think, but how you think. That is the difference. An educated person is more likely to have access to the world of rationality (formal operational), an uneducated person is less likely to have this access.

Now with regard to knowledge: rationality inherently gives a more accurate perspective on the world than does the rule/role mind. This is because rationality can hold more perspectives at once. An analogy is if we were trying to gain an accurate knowledge of a cube. If you can hold a memory of all six sides of the cube simultaneously (rationality), you will have a more accurate knowledge of the cube as a whole than someone who merely holds a memory of one or two sides and then assumes the remaining sides must be the same (rule/role).

So rationality is inherently more accurate a form of thinking than is pre-rationality.

Furthermore, formal operational, or rationality, is inherently more capable of not merely more accurate knowledge, but greater knowledge than concrete operational thinking is. These computers we are using here, for example, would not exist if not for science, which utilizes formal operational thinking. Rationality took knowledge to whole new levels that the concrete mind could never have imagined. But that isn't to say that someone with this capacity WILL know more than someone stuck at concrete operational. it merely means that rationality is inherently more capable of going further with knowledge than is the rule/role mind, which tends to remains fixed at what it was initial taught and never challenges these teachings, thereby never extending its knowledge in any deep sense.

So, in summary: a person with higher education is more likely (though not necessarily so) to have developed formal operational cognition than is the uneducated person. A person with formal operational cognition is inherently more capable of accurate knowledge, and deeper knowledge, than is someone at concrete operational.

MY EDUCATION SERVIVAL When I was still in primary, I used to stay with my grand mother who lived in Sikohwe village. I struggled so much with my primary education because the only assistance was coming from my uncle; Mangeni, when he passed away in 1999, that is when I realized that life was hard and I went back to my home village of Buyiye at Mzee Gusino’s home When I was in secondary level, my father struggled with me until I reached senior four. The struggle was so tough that my father failed to get the school fees and to be sincere; I survived narrowly not to sit for the Uganda certificate of education exams due to school fee shortage. At this moment, my mother went and talked to my uncle; Juma Wilson Abura who promised her some money and good enough he gave it to her and I paid. Even although you passed away uncle, the memories of what you did still remain fresh in our minds. May God rest you in eternal Peace? Why Education should be more like Survival School Imagine dropping someone off in the middle of the wilderness to survive in the wild for a week. What are the most important things that person needs to help them survive? Arguably more than anything else, grit—sustained perseverance and passion towards long-term goals—will help him or her thrive in this challenging environment. Grit also turns out to be essential in education; grittier students tend to outperform the less gritty ones (Duckworth et al. 2013). Given the importance of grit, the question becomes how we can instill this trait into our students. Using mountain climbing as an analogy, this paper explores how giving student’s ownership over their education can help them develop grit and become active, independent learners. The first clue that today’s education system is insufficient at instilling grit comes from the definition itself: grit requires passion and there is no passion in most of today’s classrooms. Education today goes something like this: The teacher tells the students what they are going to learn, how they will learn it, and how they will be tested on it. The students have no control, often are not interested in the material the teacher is supposed to be teaching, or find that the teaching style does no fit well with their individual learning styles. If classes or problems are like mountains, then today’s education system is about teachers bring the students to a mountain they usually don’t want to climb and handing them a map that micromanages every aspect of their journey. The first problem with this pedagogy is that it is not interesting; the students have no idea why someone would want to climb this mountain in the first place. If the material is not interesting to the student, there will be no passion and no chance to develop grit. At the same time, if the student does not care about the material, they will have no motivation to continue after they get stuck, so there will be no perseverance. The biggest problem though is that even when students succeed, they feel no reward. Because they are climbing a mountain that the teacher prescribed using a map that they were given, they will not appreciate the work they did to get there and the view they have at the top. Today’s education system focuses on teaching map-reading. The idea is that there are certain mountains that every student should know how to climb, and the best way to achieve this is to give students maps for those mountains and to teach them how to navigate with them. What this doesn’t teach is map-making, which means that students are not prepared to climb the worthwhile mountains the mountains that interest them that have never been climbed before. It is the difference between teaching survival skills for the jungle instead of general survival skills; the former is useful for one specific situation, while the latter can be applied anywhere. To prepare students for the challenges they will face in the 21st century climate change, sustainable energy, world hunger, complex mountains for which no map has ever been drawn this is the direction education needs to go. By focusing on teaching map-making, education can not only better equip students with the tools they need for the modern world, but it can also instill students with the grit they need to become successful in whatever inspires them. The main difference between map-reading and map-making education is who is in control. The latter is all about giving control to students, and helping them realize they have the potential to learn anything. It begins by first asking a student what kinds of mountains interest them. Once a student has chosen a topic that inspires them be it robotics, basketball, or ballet then will then have to create the map that allows them to climb that mountain. Students will struggle at this task, especially the first few times they try to make maps, but this is exactly the point. Students need to struggle to develop grit, and because they are climbing a mountain of their choice, they will understand that a wonderful view awaits them at the top and will be motivated to keep climbing. When they reach the top, having struggled tremendously to get their, students will appreciate the view more than they ever could when following the teacher’s map. At the same time, students gain the self-efficacy that only comes from experiencing personal success at something difficult. Teaching students to make maps and letting them climb mountains of their choice helps students develop the passion and perseverance that define grit. Students become passionate because they can learn about topics that inspire them, and develop perseverance by struggling and succeeding to achieve their goals. Together, these steps form a cyclic process, where each previous success inspires the next, and students strive to climb higher and higher mountains. The turning point in this style of education comes when students have mastered map-making to the point that they see the common features in all maps. At this point, students will then be able to climb any mountain, no matter how tall. They recognize that they have the tools to make a map for any mountain and that no matter how tough a climb it is, they have the grit to make to the top. Most importantly, they will recognize that awaiting a top of this challenging mountain is a phenomenal view that will more than validate their effort. Ultimately, education is about preparing students for the future. Given the uncertainties the future holds, the best way to prepare students is to give them the tools to adapt and learn whatever they need to flourish. Teaching map-making gives students the opportunity to learn how to learn, while also providing opportunities to develop the grit that is so instrumental to success. When students can make maps to climb any mountain, they have the power to cure cancer, generate sustainable energy, and change the world in whatever way that inspires them.