Education and intelligence thoughts

[brendannz]

What are your thoughts on this..

is education necessary? like University education, or is it just for your
place in society..

Can you be highly intelligent, without much of an education? I tend to believe that the two are related, but completely different.

I think intelligence, is a very broad term too.. it's not something that you can really put a Quotiant on, because there's so many different fascets to it, and all brains has their advantages and disadvantages..

I know someone who has an Honours degree in art history, yet her entire life motivation seems to just be to complain as much as possible..

And is there a relationship between, kindness and being a good person, and honesty and intelligence?

Like Steve Pavlina the super-genius behind this site, was a shoplifter earlier in his life, and now he's a lightworker..

I think an honest life, is a smarter life to choose than a dishonest life.. so maybe honesty and intelligence are related..

[brendannz]

Actually I should add that I do recognize that getting a degree, is a sign of hard work, and it's not something that everyone can do..

[amj]

Originally Posted by brendannz

What are your thoughts on this..

is education necessary? like University education, or is it just for your
place in society..

Can you be highly intelligent, without much of an education? I tend to believe that the two are related, but completely different.

I think intelligence, is a very broad term too.. it's not something that you can really put a Quotiant on, because there's so many different fascets to it, and all brains has their advantages and disadvantages..

I know someone who has an Honours degree in art history, yet her entire life motivation seems to just be to complain as much as possible..

And is there a relationship between, kindness and being a good person, and honesty and intelligence?

Like Steve Pavlina the super-genius behind this site, was a shoplifter earlier in his life, and now he's a lightworker..

I think an honest life, is a smarter life to choose than a dishonest life.. so maybe honesty and intelligence are related..

Education is necessary but just because a person is "college educated" doesn't make them smart. Educating oneself by reading, listening and learning are great ways to learn, become more intelligent, and open minded. A person can be highly educated without formal education. Some really intelligent people dropped out of high school. One of my favorit rappers, Nas, dropped out in the 8th grade and he is one of the most profound rappers I have ever heard.

As far as kindness and being a good person, most kind people are good people. As far as honesty and intelligence, I don't believe there is a coorelation.

[YourHumbleNarrator]

School =/= Education. Universities may have claimed a monopoly on intelligence but it's outside of their control. You can become quite well educated without ever stepping foot in school and you can stay in school for two decades and come out of it without being able to think independently. Some colleges do help to shape intelligent people, but all a degree proves is that you're able to complete a course of study within the parameters the institution has defined. Real education requires effort on the part of the one being educated; it is not something that is bought or given and there are no barriers on how it can be attained.

[FazK]

I think that intelligence does = a certain amount of studying and learning and knowledge. You cannot be called intelligent if you know nothing about anything. So i think that education is necessary because getting a degree is quite hard work and means that you have actually learnt and studied a subject.

You can be highly intelligent without going to university it just means that you will have to take steps to educate yourself.

[kgwlpro]

Education is quite important for the soul, but the dualistic views of the western philosophies are very close minded. The curriculum that they (gov't and the controlling powers) implement on to today's children is ignorant and irrelevant to the true existing world.

For example, every human being is full of unlimited potential and quite able to do anything, so if in schools they included practical teachings such as plumbing, word working, horticulture..etc then there would be no place for trades people, not saying trades people are negative in any manner but the point of their jobs are to make up for our laziness and lack of practical knowledge. No offence to any trades people.

Also if we were taught about the true spiritualism of the world and within each of us then we would have no need for these materialized and structured religions to preach to us and give us guidelines on how to live our lives - we would remember what is truly source (cosmic energy aka God) is already within us all, yet we suppress all of this and worry about material accummulation and other people's opinions on our egocentric lives.

People nowadays confuse knowledge with wisdom, it's easy to do so live in a world inundated with commercial advertising and material objects engineered to make us all feel inadequate and distract from true wisdom and a pure sense of self.

[SMA]

An interesting question and equally interesting responses. kgwlpro points out that we often, these days, confuse knowledge with wisdom, so that someone who has studied for four years in university, obtaining a certain breadth of knowledge, is assumed to have wisdom, which is demonstrably not always true.

Our school systems are almost designed to discourage true, individual thought and exploration of ideas (my 11 year old tells me this every day). On top of that, schools don't even touch upon the things which could really help us in our lives - thriving financially, emotionally and spiritually (whatever that means to a person), learning and gleaning from a wide variety of sources, critical analysis, tolerance and curiosity, etc.. Rather than learning lessons from history, we are taught skewed views of what 'happened' - instead of asking such valuable questions as 'What were the different, equally valid perspectives? What could have been done here to change the outcome?'

Sooo...sorry to veer off. Is wisdom not gained through experience and openness, and does it not take intelligence to be truly open and wise (a never-ending path)? With respect to honesty, isn't it best to be honest with ourselves about why we are making certain decisions, as opposed to looking outside of us for validation of what is good and 'right?' I guess I'm just referring to our internal compass - the sense of self kgwlpro is speaking of, and which Steve often mentions in his posts in so many words.

[Mogget]

I think intelligent people tend to enjoy learning and education (whether self intiated or formal) but all of the smartest people I know are people who repeatedly dropped out or failed at Uni and some even highschool through lack of stimulation. These people are successful and continue to learn avidly for fun, but have never had much success in formal education.

Speaking for myself I gave up on my Uni degree as I repeatedly passed the tests but failed on attendance (ie didn't go to the course, or study at all in many cases, but passed the exams). I had a lot of social anxiety and for me turning up was far harder than passing an exam in a previously unstudied subject! On one notable occassion I had missed so many classes I turned up to one halfway through unaware that it was an exam worth 60% of our total score. I got 97% for that course.

It irritated my fellow students who would study very hard, turn up to all the lectures and take copius notes, to be out scored by me - if I turned up at all I was likely to be napping and usually ducked out during the break, and I never read the assigned texts.

It baffled me how they could find it such hard gping... And these are not stupid people, we are talking average intelligence tertiary students, all literate, articulate and motivated...

I have tried several times to complete formal education (officially I am a very junior highschool dropout) but I have never been able to overcome the boredom and frustration of the contact hours. I have tried correspondence but found that too boring as well - though i will probably try again with different subjects at some stage.

I do very much enjoy learning for my own pleasure and will avidly read up on subjects that interest me, listen to audio lectures on virtually any subject, and love learning how to DO things too.