You know, I was thinking about that this morning while shaving (maybe my face, maybe my legs - lol). Someone had menitioned "learning for the sake of learning." That is a tough concept for many to understand.
I imagine if my child came to me after college and said "I want to learn for the sake of learning." I would reply, great, what is your profession? What is the goal? It needs to exist outside of yourself. There needs to be . . . and don't gasp . . . production.
I feel like I am rambling. My thoughts were much clearer this morning (I'm a morning person). I will develop this more over the course of the day.
You know, I was thinking about that this morning while shaving (maybe my face, maybe my legs - lol). Someone had menitioned "learning for the sake of learning." That is a tough concept for many to understand. I imagine if my child came to me after college and said "I want to learn for the sake of learning." I would reply, great, what is your profession? What is the goal? It needs to exist outside of yourself. There needs to be . . . and don't gasp . . . production. I feel like I am rambling. My thoughts were much clearer this morning (I'm a morning person). I will develop this more over the course of the day.
Thanks, Staff!
Statistics show that people with college degrees do earn substantially more in the course of a lifetime than those without such degrees. Therefore, a college degree does indeed tend to have a practical value, and most disciplines in college do lead to specific professions and to productivity within those professions.
By "learning for the sake of learning," I suspect the poster meant the old Socratic ideal that knowledge is a good in and of itself -- that knowing is better than not knowing, that learning is better than not learning, and that one purpose of the years a person spends in college is to inculcate life-long habits of learning and curiosity and intellectual discipline. The specific "facts" we learn in college are likely (in many cases) to be outmoded before too long, but if we have learned how to think and explore and discover and challenge ourselves intellectually, our knowledge will never grow old, because it will continue to develop.
The most creative (and therefore productive) people tend to be people who are innately curious, innately desirous to learn. These are the folks who are the inventors, the discoverers, the innovators who add so much to our lives in both practical and intangible ways. Universities at one time were considered to be the places where people learned not so much a trade as the means to think creatively and self-critically, and it is this ideal that many of us see threatened by the likes of Shelby Thames.
I hope this doesn't sound too utopian. We all have to worry about being productive and earning our keep, but I hope we can also all agree that there is more to life than simply making a living.
You know, I was thinking about that this morning while shaving (maybe my face, maybe my legs - lol). Someone had menitioned "learning for the sake of learning." That is a tough concept for many to understand. I imagine if my child came to me after college and said "I want to learn for the sake of learning." I would reply, great, what is your profession? What is the goal? It needs to exist outside of yourself. There needs to be . . . and don't gasp . . . production. I feel like I am rambling. My thoughts were much clearer this morning (I'm a morning person). I will develop this more over the course of the day.
I wouldn't worry about it much. The world has a way of reinforcing the need to work -- that is a message no one escapes. I doubt that any child in this country could possibly believe for long that learning happens in an economic vacuum.
"Learning for the same of learning" however, is a kind of ideal that reminds us that all learning is conected -- that it is impossible to forcast whether any aspect of learning will have practical ends or not. Think of how many bits of knowlege that were once considered obscure or impractical have now emerged as important discoveries. The people who discovered them didn't ask what the pragmatic end was -- they simply pursued an interest, an interest born of a "love" of learning itself.
The paramount virtue of the mind is curiosity. The paramount action of the mind is to want to resolve the questions that curiosity raises. The wise society will never discourage either activity, no matter how superficial the curious impulse seems, nor how seemingly unproductive the answer may be. Not only do we not know how future knowlege may connect, we also know that the sheer mental exercise of questioning and answering develops the muscle needed for discovery and intellectual creativity.
If you look at the history of the most inventive, economically developed societies you'd find they allow plenty of room for that kind of learning. Rather than see it and its practitioners as wasteful, they understand this activity to be a form of basic research necessary to growth and progress.
Great post Stephen Judd. In other words, somebody had to be the first to eat an artichoke.
(I was thinking about the bird migratory research being done at USM, as someone else mentioned, and its importance to tracking bird flu now. You never know.)
To all of the above thoughts I would add that most college graduates do not remain in a field directly related to their major. There are exceptions, of course, such as Nursing. A general college education opens many doors to many different professions. An undergraduate degree in history does not make one a historian. An undergraduate degree in psychology does not make one a psychologist. An undergraduate degree in political science does not make one a laywer. An undergraduate degree in biology does not make one a physician.
Even nursing, although one of the most obvious and immediate "applications" of a major, must focus on critical thinking, and defining health very broadly. Much of what we teach students in the first semester (facts, techniques, etc) are outdated by the time they take NCLEX. As a college educated person, they are EDUCATED, not trained as with the early schools of nursing. As Sister Harkins used to tell our graduates, look at your degree, the B.S. comes before nursing and is the most important part of your education. By preparing our students to think, reflect, and feel, they can hopefully care for their patients and learn those new techniques, medicines, etc. as new paradigms of health and health care emerge. It would be a real disservice if we only taught them the "how" of nursing practice and not the value of curiosity in identifiying problems in health care and seeking solutions that no one has thought of before. One doesn't have to look far to see that the most advanced health care system in the world is not working so well for everyone (actually, for anyone?). Nightingale was better educated than the physicians of her day. She defined health as "not only to be well, but to use well, every power that we have." Thank you Stephen for your very well-articulated defense of learning for learning's sake. I have copied and will use as a mantra for my high school aged child when he obsesses about a college major.
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Four years ain't sufficient
Date:
RE: HA, 3/18/06: USM faculty voice concerns over proposals
Much of what we teach students in the first semester (facts, techniques, etc) are outdated by the time they take NCLEX. As a college educated person, they are EDUCATED, not trained
This is what makes Nursing a "profession" rather than a "trade." USM prepares its students to be more than technicians. It prepares them to be leaders.