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WHAT IS EDUCATION?

AUGUST 098

EDUCATE:

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1)Educate:To devel­op the fac­ul­ties and pow­ers of (a per­son) by teaching,instruction, or schooling.

Synonyms: instruct, school, drill. 2)Educate: To qual­i­fy by instruc­tion or train­ing for a par­tic­u­lar calling,practice, etc.; train: to edu­cate some­one for law. 3)To inform: to edu­cate one­self about the best course of action.(Dictionary​.com) There seem to be a bit of mis-edu­ca­tion among some edu­cat­ed peo­ple about the mean­ing of edu­ca­tion. As such, they are caught in a quandary as to how to han­dle the idea that any­one not schooled in their dis­ci­pline could actu­al­ly them­selves be edu­cat­ed albeit in anoth­er area. As such I went to Dictionary​.com to see what they had to say about “Educate”, as above>

images (50)I recent­ly wrote about a dis­cus­sion forum on Okra where alleged Doctors were unable to par­tic­i­pate in a light-heart­ed con­ver­sa­tion with­out telling every­one they are Doctors . https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​5​5​1​6​#​r​e​s​p​ond. To date I have noticed smol­der­ing embers of resent­ment that some­one not schooled at the University Of the West Indies could chal­lenge them on their absolute idio­cy in believ­ing that only doc­tors could make informed con­tri­bu­tions. Oh… did I tell you they were all from Jamaica? Yeah they are !!

So as I said I noticed some smol­der­ing embers of resent­ment around,social media dis­guised as some­thing else. Which leaves me to con­clude that the resent­ment is whol­ly about what many peo­ple believed. That many Jamaicans who ben­e­fit­ed from a col­lege and University edu­ca­tion do so not just for their indi­vid­ual bet­ter­ment, but as a weapon they may use to lord over any­one who dare chal­lenge or engage them. I must say this is not an indict­ment on the UWI , God for­bid, many of my fam­i­ly mem­bers are proud Alums. My broth­er earned his Masters there before com­plet­ing two Doctorates over­seas. My broth­er exhibits none of the traits of inse­cu­ri­ty I saw on that thread.

I crave the indul­gence of all on this, both those with much for­mal edu­ca­tion and those schooled through less for­mal means. Also do edu­cate me on the rea­sons behind some peo­ple’s inabil­i­ty to have a con­ver­sa­tion with­out feel­ing the need to inform oth­ers of their aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions. What exact­ly are the inse­cu­ri­ties inher­ent that caus­es edu­cat­ed Jamaicans in par­tic­u­lar to dis­play those inse­cu­ri­ties? Is it that they fear no one will lis­ten to them, no one will pay atten­tion to them? Or is it a phys­i­o­log­i­cal need to dom­i­nate, to intim­i­date, are these clas­sic signs of clos­et bul­lies? Do these peo­ple work hard for their Degrees because for years they went unrec­og­nized? Have they done the hard work because they have an extreme need to be noticed? On this I will await the diag­no­sis of the educated:

8 thoughts on “WHAT IS EDUCATION?”

  1. How do you know the peo­ple were edu­cat­ed at UWI?

    Is your inter­pre­ta­tion more about you con­cept of self, than the per­ceived atti­tude of the others?

    I have noticed that peo­ple tend to inter­pret ques­tions about the valid­i­ty of the infor­ma­tion they share, as an indi­ca­tion that those who ques­tion, are ques­tion­ing their intel­li­gence, rather than try­ing to under­stand the sub­ject of the discussion.

    That atti­tude, I find, gets in the way of what could be a decent dis­cus­sion that could teach us much. 

    Maybe those who post infor­ma­tion should either not post, or try to con­tribute things they actu­al­ly know some­thing about, so that they are able to ade­quate­ly field ques­tions, or sim­ply say “I don’t know”

    Immediately launch­ing an attack on the per­son who ques­tions, does noth­ing for the image of the poster.

    I see no prob­lem with peo­ple declar­ing their area of exper­tise. In fact, I rather like it. I have been able to get assis­tance from and pro­vide assis­tance to total strangers on Facebook, because we declared our inter­ests and spe­cial­ties in discussions.

    Why do we resent the ques­tions? Is it that they make us aware of our own inadequacies?

    • Hi Sandra thanks for your ques­tions and com­ments. First to your ques­tion. A quick search revealed what I want­ed to know, like I said with­out Face/​Book some peo­ple would be noth­ing, sub­se­quent­ly every­thing about them is actu­al­ly on Facebook.I have no prob­lem with any­one’s con­cept of my intel­li­gence, nev­er did, I’m not a nar­cis­sist. I nev­er cared much about what any­one thought of me , much less peo­ple I don’t know. “CONTEXT” Here’s a word they should acquaint them­selves with, there was no need for the den­i­gra­tion of the light-heart­ed dis­cus­sion we were hav­ing, so yes my dear there was no rea­son for them lay­ing out their resumes.I am sure every poster on that thread have a resume, maybe not resumes with doc­tor­ates in them, or even med­ical train­ing. Like these social climbers though, they have resumes. That my friend is the rea­son for my cha­grin, that was the rea­son for my ire. We are not the edu­ca­tion we earn, we are not the homes and cars we own, and we aren’t the busi­ness­es we own, we are peo­ple. Sometimes it is impor­tant to engage as peo­ple and not about what we do. That was the rea­son I was in that forum, for the light heart­ed ban­ter. Ps. while you try to ratio­nal­ize on their behalf, it is impor­tant that you note, they were not seek­ing to under­stand the sub­ject, they were try­ing to force their ideas on oth­ers. When that failed they went to bul­ly­ing by strut­ting their resumes. The oth­er ques­tions you post regard­ing inad­e­qua­cies , goes exact­ly to my point. Thanks for your response.

  2. Mike, I am giv­ing my opin­ion, I am not ratio­nal­is­ing on behalf of any­one as I am sure they are quite capa­ble of defend­ing themselves.

    I often have the same ques­tions as the ones you refer too, but I opt not to ask because I know, from expe­ri­ence the direc­tion the dis­cus­sion will take.

    I urge us all to respond to ques­tions, rather than to the per­son who pos­es them. It is sad­ly, not typ­i­cal of Jamaicans to do so. We love to attack the mes­sen­ger. Maybe because it is eas­i­er to do so, than to face the real­i­ty that we do not know? So what? What is wrong with say­ing “I don’t know?” 

    Mike, I have had my fair share of ver­bal attacks for show­ing respect by way of believ­ing that posters are able to engage in a dis­cus­sion sur­round­ing their posts. I came to the forum hop­ing share and learn from the expe­ri­ences of oth­ers. Indeed I have learnt much. But more so about how we per­ceive oth­ers through a glass tint­ed by our own experiences. 

    In my expe­ri­ence on the forum, there have been a few love­ly dis­cus­sions but they hap­pen only when peo­ple do seek to find a hid­den agen­da, and are able to respond to the ques­tion. In those cas­es, they often don’t share each oth­er’s opin­ion, but the dis­cus­sion is civ­il, and I was able to learn from them.

    Typically the peo­ple who take affront, are those who are unable to car­ry the discussion. 

    So, please to tek your emo­tions affa yuh sleeve, put on yuh big girl panties, and deal wid it man! Nobody can act supe­ri­or to you with­out your permission. 

    Me done! 🙂

  3. Correction:

    In my expe­ri­ence on the forum, there have been a few love­ly dis­cus­sions but they hap­pen only when peo­ple do NOT seek to find a hid­den agenda …

    • My dear sis­ter You know that I val­ue your input, as such I invite you to take a look at the thread , you will notice that the con­vo was fun and light-heart­ed until a cer­tain per­son changed that by going after Cher. As a real man I felt com­pelled to say enough. As capa­ble as you are of defend­ing and pro­tect­ing your­self, and does­n’t need any­one com­ing to your defense, I would have come to your defense, it’s just my sense of old fash­ioned values.
      On the oth­er assump­tions sis? Those who know me under­stands my dis­dain for bul­lies, they come in all forms. I was amused that they thought they were push­ing my but­tons, they even naive­ly came up with on- the-spot diag­no­sis of me. As some­one trained to lis­ten and fer­ret out the truth , I was actu­al­ly doing my own diag­no­sis of them for my own inter­ests. They fell for it hook line and sinker.

  4. Sandra.…I’ll post the below…LOL…
    Stupid state­ment, “…they are caught in a quandary as to how to han­dle the idea that any­one not schooled in their dis­ci­pline could actu­al­ly them­selves be edu­cat­ed albeit in anoth­er area…”.…An arche­ol­o­gist, a his­to­ri­an, a lin­guist and many oth­ers in dis­ci­plines oth­er than mine are prob­a­bly much bet­ter edu­cat­ed than I…
    The fol­low­ing is anoth­er stu­pid ques­tion, “What exact­ly are the inse­cu­ri­ties inher­ent that caus­es edu­cat­ed Jamaicans in par­tic­u­lar to dis­play those insecurities?”.…where is the evi­dence that this is a trait, “in par­tic­u­lar” relat­ed to Jamaicans vs, Russians, for instance?
    If one men­tions their pro­fes­sion, which I have not seen a pletho­ra of such, why is that a sign of inse­cu­ri­ty, rather than an attempt to estab­lish one’s bonafides as an expert in the area being discussed…
    If on is giv­ing online advice as to build­ing a hill­side house­’s foun­da­tion, , I want to know if that per­son is a struc­tur­al engi­neer or some high school dropout who mixed cement for a sum­mer and was paid min­i­mum wage for his efforts…
    My ques­tion would be, why do some une­d­u­cat­ed peo­ple make so many stu­pid state­ments, ask so many stu­pid ques­tion and make so many attempts to deval­ue those with the brains and ambi­tion to have achieved high­er edu­ca­tion and grad­u­ate degrees…
    What is it about some peo­ple who would like to have us believe that high­er edu­ca­tion is a lia­bil­i­ty, instead of an accom­plish­ment of which one should be proud???.….
    Are they jeal­ous or are they stupid?
    Do they not know that Black and Colonised peo­ple had to fight and die for the abil­i­ty and oppor­tu­ni­ty of their prog­e­ny to get that education???
    Do they not know that no, or mis-edu­ca­tion has been a means of enforc­ing oppres­sion, exploita­tion and slavery.…Why do you think slaves were flogged or killed for try­ing to learn how to read and write?
    I sug­gest that the jack­ass­es who post such crap, get an advanced degree in history.…Sounds like they don’t know sheet about where they came from and the forces that put them where they are.…
    PS.…I not that the author, who appar­ent­ly has noth­ing to men­tion regard­ing his own edu­ca­tion, does not hes­i­tate to men­tion that of his brother’s.….My advice.…“Get the hell of Facebbook, stop talk­ing non­sense and fol­low the exam­ple of your brother.…If you have the ambi­tion and/​or the ability!
    • Your lack of edu­ca­tion and inse­cu­ri­ties are being broad­cast in your post.…

    President Obama.….“Higher edu­ca­tion is still the best road to upward mobility!”

    Very iron­ic that above this stu­pid post are adver­tise­ments about get­ting high­er degrees.…..Of course they are by col­leges that no one who is tru­ly in a tru­ly supe­ri­or edu­ca­tion would attend…

    • It’s great to see that you have final­ly gone to look at some his­to­ry books, iron­i­cal­ly it seem that you have emerged a big­ger Jack-ass than before. It is clear you have the abil­i­ty to read, what we need to build on is your com­pre­hen­sion skills. I implore you, go back , hire a Tutor, ask him/​her to explain what you have read to you.
      I am a big fan and a huge pro­po­nent of high­er learn­ing, “HUGE” . It just seem that for you Dennis, it just made you a dumb­er jack-ass.… Oh don’t wor­ry about my edu­ca­tion or lack there­of. Even in my dumb­est moment I am supe­ri­or to you.
      I just do not poss­es your narcissism.
      I will not waste time with you, except to say that through­out your post on that thread, you dis­played nar­cis­sis­tic ten­den­cies which may impress some peo­ple, I am just not among that group. A jack-ass is a Jack-ass, irre­spec­tive of edu­ca­tion. You sir fit that bill.
      My fight is nev­er with well edu­cat­ed peo­ple, you may try to obfus­cate all you want, my prob­lem is with you. Stand like a man and defend the fact you are a moron, do not hide behind,or seek cov­er from smart edu­cat­ed peo­ple , you are not one of them.

      “Very iron­ic that above this stu­pid post are adver­tise­ments about get­ting high­er degrees……Of course they are by col­leges that no one who is tru­ly in a tru­ly supe­ri­or edu­ca­tion would attend”.

      This sen­tence is a syn­op­sis of what I have said and believe about you. Not just that you are not a smart man, but in actu­al­i­ty you do not under­stand how any­thing works out­side what you do…oh who you are,.. well there is no dif­fer­ence between the two. Dennis the anes­the­si­ol­o­gist. I sug­gest you stop inhal­ing that gas, it’s for the patients use not yours dumbo.
      Educated dumb doctors.
      https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​5​5​1​6​#​r​e​s​p​ond

  5. Oh lord Jesus! 

    Such bile!

    I’m flab­ber­gast­ed!

    Disappointed too.

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