What does it mean to academically train your mind?

[Jupiter Drops]

How does it work?

What does it mean to be cultured, refined, and enlightened?

It's not just about reading a bunch of peer reviewed articles nor memorizing endlessly on a subject. I'm sure that it all boggles down to true understanding.

Can anyone tell me?

 

[Neve]

I interpret "academically trained" mind to be something that is achieved only through higher education, preferably a PhD or graduate program (something more academically rigorous than a regular Bachelor's degree unless you major in engineering, philosophy, or theology). I mean you can be self-taught in a lot of things and you can be quite successful at it, but certain graduate programs faciliate skills over rote memorization. You can memorize something and still not have a true understanding of it.

I think it really boils down to the skills that are taught in certain degree programs rather than the information itself. The skills that you learn will allow you to apply it to new situations, which exercises critical thinking.

Academics are only as good as the ideas which they present and their worth is based on the originality of their ideas, not repetition of old concepts (unless the PhD is lecturing students).

 

[redblue22]

How does it work?

What does it mean to be cultured, refined, and enlightened?

It's not just about reading a bunch of peer reviewed articles nor memorizing endlessly on a subject. I'm sure that it all boggles down to true understanding.

Can anyone tell me?

Why do you really care? sure, I can do "cultured" garbage and look down on everyone else or think myself great. so? of course you could take the barabaric illiterate route.

I think the real question is why you want to know a bunch of stuff. and what kind of stuff do you want to know? have you ever wondered whether it would be better to have depth or breadth?

 

[Jupiter Drops]

I interpret "academically trained" mind to be something that is achieved only through higher education, preferably a PhD or graduate program (something more academically rigorous than a regular Bachelor's degree unless you major in engineering, philosophy, or theology). I mean you can be self-taught in a lot of things and you can be quite successful at it, but certain graduate programs faciliate skills over rote memorization. You can memorize something and still not have a true understanding of it.

I think it really boils down to the skills that are taught in certain degree programs rather than the information itself. The skills that you learn will allow you to apply it to new situations, which exercises critical thinking.

Academics are only as good as the ideas which they present and their worth is based on the originality of their ideas, not repetition of old concepts (unless the PhD is lecturing students).

Thanks for your reply.

Why do you really care? sure, I can do "cultured" garbage and look down on everyone else or think myself great. so? of course you could take the barabaric illiterate route.

I think the real question is why you want to know a bunch of stuff. and what kind of stuff do you want to know? have you ever wondered whether it would be better to have depth or breadth?

And why is it great to take the 'barbaric illiterate route'? What does it mean exactly?


Is there something wrong with wanting to learn more?



I don't want to learn more to snub on others. I'm not ethnocentric. I want to learn more to become a decent human being. It's a glorious thing to be intelligent. God gave us all minds to work with.


The more you understand, the more you can critically judge on what is useful, righteous, and beautiful. It also helps to understand others better.

 

[Rose of Eden]

I interpret "academically trained" mind to be something that is achieved only through higher education, preferably a PhD or graduate program (something more academically rigorous than a regular Bachelor's degree unless you major in engineering, philosophy, or theology). I mean you can be self-taught in a lot of things and you can be quite successful at it, but certain graduate programs faciliate skills over rote memorization. You can memorize something and still not have a true understanding of it.

I think it really boils down to the skills that are taught in certain degree programs rather than the information itself. The skills that you learn will allow you to apply it to new situations, which exercises critical thinking.

Academics are only as good as the ideas which they present and their worth is based on the originality of their ideas, not repetition of old concepts (unless the PhD is lecturing students).

I would have to agree with this. Being in my first year of law school right now, I'm finding this to be true.

 

[Neve]

I would have to agree with this. Being in my first year of law school right now, I'm finding this to be true.

I'm in law school, too! First year is rough so keep going....at least, second and third year, we get to pick our own classes/professors.

 

[Rhye]

I'm going to agree with Neve and have to say it refreshing to read something a bit more positive about higher education on this forum.


I hope I didn't speak too soon.

 

[Jupiter Drops]

Still, my questions on being cultured, refined, and enlightened are not answered.

 

[ImperatorWall]

Academia is rigid, blind, and biased. School should be used as a means to an end, a tool to reach a goal. Nothing more.

You can train your mind on your own to be far more powerful and agile than any of the conventional reasoning you will find in the academic world.

There is a false correlation between believing that those brilliant people you think are "academically trained" are brilliant because of the academic training. They are not.

The people that do claim to be "academically trained" and thus "cultured, refined, and enlightened" are the ones that will defend that false correlation to the death because they want to be like the brilliant people, and don't understand/admit that the brilliance does not come from a classical education.

 

[Strider1002]

I would say just read, Jupiter. Pick a subject you want to know more about, find a good book on it, and read...

I usually start with the "For Dummies" books if I know nothing on the subject

 

[Neve]

Still, my questions on being cultured, refined, and enlightened are not answered.

I decided not to answer the question on being "cultured, refined, and enlightened" because it is a very snobby question to ask and it gives higher education a bad reputation. The answer is also subjective. In undergrad, I took several art history classes, including a class with a very famous art historian, yet that hardly makes me cultured, refined, or enlightened.

There is a false correlation between believing that those brilliant people you think are "academically trained" are brilliant because of the academic training. They are not.

The people that do claim to be "academically trained" and thus "cultured, refined, and enlightened" are the ones that will defend that false correlation to the death because they want to be like the brilliant people, and don't understand/admit that the brilliance does not come from a classical education.

The question was not about "brilliant people". The question was about how to achieve an "academically trained" mind. No one in this thread ever said that an "academically trained" mind will make you "brilliant" or will make you "cultured, refined, and enlightened". What academic training will do is provide you with skills (rather than rote memorization) which facilitate critical thinking and the creation of new ideas.

 

[ImperatorWall]

The question was not about "brilliant people". The question was about how to achieve an "academically trained" mind. No one in this thread ever said that an "academically trained" mind will make you "brilliant" or will make you "cultured, refined, and enlightened". What academic training will do is provide you with skills (rather than rote memorization) which facilitate critical thinking and the creation of new ideas.

My experience with academic training is that it kills critical thinking and the creation of new ideas.

The few teachers I had that did promote critical thinking and new ideas did so by deviating so far from the institution's policies that they warned the students if anyone found out our grades would have to be changed to reflect the policies.

 

[Satine]

Well, I'm getting a degree at the moment to become a counsellor, and the method I've chosen is called Transactional Analysis. And I love it! I'm proud that I'm getting an education but the real glory in it for me is that TA is organised and helps me to see the full range of human behaviour clearly, without it all being a big muddle. I guess... for me, I grew up in a very chaotic environment. My immediate family didn't organise their thoughts or plan for anything much, so in order to feel I could survive, I had to. So now, I love education and am a voracious reader of books.

I love learning because there is so much more in the world that is possible than if you just wing it. Because understanding how something works just feels so gratifying. I had to stop myself yesterday asking my rather tired boyfriend how a car's suspension works!

So to answer your questions:

- How does it work? I'm not quite sure what you're really asking here, whether you're asking how to go up through the stages of education, or whether you're asking how to organise information on a subject so that it becomes easily teachable/learnable, or whether you mean something else.

- Cultured, refined, enlightened? I think my answer to this is: Being aware of the way other people work, why they do what they do and how to bring out the best in others feels fabulous. It's like having a map and being able to follow it. It makes me feel prepared, assertive and sure of myself. It's stimulating! It's a useful tool but it's a beautiful thing in and of itself, like a form of art. The sciences show you the range of things that are possible and they can be more than you might have worked out on your own.

At the moment I'm not very good at maths - so far I get easily confused by it. But I think that's part of something deep-rooted about the men in my family not liking women to encroach on a 'male' skill like maths. So I'm still working on rooting out my beliefs about that (which TA is helping with) and am determined to eventually get good at maths. It's a bit of a person project of mine. I'm getting along in life okay without being capable with maths but I want to know for knowing's own sake.

- Memorizing/reading peer-reviewed articles? Understanding is better than just memorizing things, but memorizing can be very useful in helping to understand a discipline properly. Let me give you an example.

I've just learned about injunctions and drivers, which in TA are kind of instructions your parents give you and that you respond to without realising it. I've read into all of them and have recognised the ones in my life and noted the ones that don't ring true for me. But I haven't memorized them and if you asked me to list them all now, I'd probably miss a few out or puzzle over which ones I'd missed. I need to find some kind of mnemonic so that I can scroll through them in my mind in the future when I need to use them with a client. But memorizing wouldn't be enough - there's no point in me knowing that some people have a Be Strong emotion if I don't know what Be Strong feels like, know the pain of isolating oneself in that way, how safe it feels to keep it up and how hard it can be to reach out of it. Memorizing will put the information in front of me when I need to check for it, while my true learning of it will give me the wisdom to react empathetically, kindly, usefully to it when somebody in Be Strong is sitting opposite me.

 

[Neve]

My experience with academic training is that it kills critical thinking and the creation of new ideas.

The few teachers I had that did promote critical thinking and new ideas did so by deviating so far from the institution's policies that they warned the students if anyone found out our grades would have to be changed to reflect the policies.

What program/university were you enrolled in?

I got my Bachelor's from a UC in California. I'm currently at a law school in Texas.

 

[ImperatorWall]

What program/university were you enrolled in?

I got my Bachelor's from a UC in California. I'm currently at a law school in Texas.

I have two Bachelor's from Grand Valley State University, one in accounting, one in management information systems. I also did a minor in religion.

 

[Neve]

I have two Bachelor's from Grand Valley State University, one in accounting, one in management information systems. I also did a minor in religion.

I think that certain degree programs, like philosophy and theology, facilitate critical thinking and the creation of new ideas over other subject areas, like accounting and finance. Unfortunately, there is a rift in academia between traditional, classical subjects (history, philosophy, literature) and professional school subjects (accounting, computer science, finance, nursing). I experienced this rift at the UC system in California, both as a student and an employee. The administration at my UC never developed a nursing program because they felt it was a "professional" degree rather than an "academic" (hard science) one - in other words, a nursing program would bring "shame" to the school.

I do acknowledge that some educational programs train students to have an "academically trained" mind better than others, and there are other programs (like the ones you experienced, ImperatorWall), that kill critical thinking and new ideas. It's unfortunate that your school experience wasn't better, IW. However, there are many programs out there that do encourage critical thinking and the creation of new ideas!

 

[ImperatorWall]

I think that certain degree programs, like philosophy and theology, facilitate critical thinking and the creation of new ideas over other subject areas, like accounting and finance. Unfortunately, there is a rift in academia between traditional, classical subjects (history, philosophy, literature) and professional school subjects (accounting, computer science, finance, nursing). I experienced this rift at the UC system in California, both as a student and an employee. The administration at my UC never developed a nursing program because they felt it was a "professional" degree rather than an "academic" (hard science) one - in other words, a nursing program would bring "shame" to the school.

I do acknowledge that some educational programs train students to have an "academically trained" mind better than others, and there are other programs (like the ones you experienced, ImperatorWall), that kill critical thinking and new ideas. It's unfortunate that your school experience wasn't better, IW. However, there are many programs out there that do encourage critical thinking and the creation of new ideas!

All of my electives were in philosophy or theology.

I tried to explain presuppositional apologetics to the religion professors, I tried to show the philosophy professors the fallacies in the arguments of historical figures such as Plato or Kant.

It became very evident very quickly that they did not think for themselves and instead hid behind the writings and ideas of these brilliant historical figures without ever actually critically analyzing them. They did not want to entertain the idea that Kant or Hegel could have been wrong. They had been academically taught a concept of religion and philosophy that they were not going to deviate from, and those same concepts were what they taught to others. I routinely got laughed out of class for the questions I would ask, because the other students would just assume the teacher must be correct and I was wrong.

I would write papers and give presentations tearing these classical modes of thought to shreds, just to demonstrate to students that even they should be questioned. The teachers would give me A's on my assignments because they did not want to read them and have to dialogue with me about what I had written. Every other students paper would be marked up and full of comments, mine would just have the grade and nothing else.

It was infuriating.

 

[Neve]

All of my electives were in philosophy or theology.

I tried to explain presuppositional apologetics to the religion professors, I tried to show the philosophy professors the fallacies in the arguments of historical figures such as Plato or Kant.

It became very evident very quickly that they did not think for themselves and instead hid behind the writings and ideas of these brilliant historical figures without ever actually critically analyzing them. They did not want to entertain the idea that Kant or Hegel could have been wrong. They had been academically taught a concept of religion and philosophy that they were not going to deviate from, and those same concepts were what they taught to others. I routinely got laughed out of class for the questions I would ask, because the other students would just assume the teacher must be correct and I was wrong.

I would write papers and give presentations tearing these classical modes of thought to shreds, just to demonstrate to students that even they should be questioned. The teachers would give me A's on my assignments because they did not want to read them and have to dialogue with me about what I had written. Every other students paper would be marked up and full of comments, mine would just have the grade and nothing else.

It was infuriating.

Congratulations on getting A's on your assignments in philosophy and theology. I think your experience would have been very different if you attended a different university, maybe a small liberal arts college. Don't let your experience with a few professors ruin your view of higher education.

 

[ImperatorWall]

Congratulations on getting A's on your assignments in philosophy and theology. I think your experience would have been very different if you attended a different university, maybe a small liberal arts college. Don't let your experience with a few professors ruin your view of higher education.

I doubt it.

"Academically trained" implies and requires a standard that those who are so trained can be measured against. This necessitates a rigid structure that cannot be deviated from, else one is not truly academically trained in the sense of the word. This is what being an accredited school means.

Also, I have attended more than one university.

 

[tahoe]

I interpret "academically trained" mind to be something that is achieved only through higher education, preferably a PhD or graduate program (something more academically rigorous than a regular Bachelor's degree unless you major in engineering, philosophy, or theology). I mean you can be self-taught in a lot of things and you can be quite successful at it, but certain graduate programs faciliate skills over rote memorization. You can memorize something and still not have a true understanding of it.

I think it really boils down to the skills that are taught in certain degree programs rather than the information itself. The skills that you learn will allow you to apply it to new situations, which exercises critical thinking.

Academics are only as good as the ideas which they present and their worth is based on the originality of their ideas, not repetition of old concepts (unless the PhD is lecturing students).

This. Philosophy definitely comes to mind when thinking of this subject.