The Fulfilling Life of the Well-Educated Person (Part Three of a Multi-Article Series >>>>> Major Principles in the K-12 Revolution, for Mandated Study by Aspiring Superintendents and School Board Members)

When a person is well educated, and therefore culturally enriched, that individual sees the world with eyes ever alert, ears always tuned, thoughts constantly responsive to the wonder of the everyday.

 

He notices that his bank building represents a Neoclassical style that prevailed in the Midwest from the late 19^th century into the early 20^th century.

 

She observes admiringly how the Mississippi river wends its way through the vibrant cities near its upper reaches.  She reflects upon the remarkable spectacle of a noble waterway beginning as a stream out of Lake Itaska, widening as it variously ambles and rushes southward on to the Delta at New Orleans, into the Gulf of Mexico.  And she remembers how this riverine highway awakened the literary gifts of Samuel Clemens, inspired him to embrace river captain allusions in opting for the pseudonym of Mark Twain, and moved him to eloquent abolitionist commentary even as he sends readers into belly-holding fits of laughter.

 

Sounds of Scott Joplin emanating from an unlikely urban doorway capture the appreciative comments of the educated person who knows the connections and has come to appreciate the line running from the work songs of the slaves through the forms of blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, all the way to hip-hop.  

 

One of two friends driving down the highway comments that two large formations overhead must be Paris shooting at Hector’s heel.  The other remembers how Hamlet goaded Polonius into sycophantic acknowledgment that a particular cloud was successively---  upon the observation of the Prince of Denmark---  a camel, a weasel, and a whale.

 

A young woman and man feel awkwardness of a first date fade when, after viewing a special exhibit at the special exhibit at the Walker, they engage in a good-natured debate for the remainder of the evening as to whether a Jackson Pollock painting deserves the same consideration for greatness as the work of Leonardo Da Vinci. 

 

At a table in a favored restaurant, a crowd of people in their mid-thirties work their way through a conversation that begins with the discussion of the Balfour Declaration and the White Papers, proceeds to the horrors of the gas chambers, continues to the fate of the Palestinians as second class citizens in a land they claim as their own, moves to the matter of resurging Anti-Semitism among some European populations, and ends with a careful examination of the claims of the two sides in the Arab-Israeli dispute.

 

When one friend complains about the many faults of government, an energetic conversation ensues when another friend asserts, “In a democracy, you are the government.”  There is a basis for this discussion, since all of these friends have been educated in schools in which they have accumulated factual information pertinent to electoral college, primaries, caucuses, and lobbyists.  They know the history of the Republican and Democratic parties, including the nature of the very different incarnations witnessed in the 20^th versus the 19^th century.  They understand the historical context in which John Stuart Mill could be a liberal when he seemed so unconcerned with the fate of the underclass;  and how conservative economists in the United States are very proud of the classically liberal economies prevailing in their nations.  They know about the activist organizational efforts of Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Samuel Gompers, A. Phillip Randolph, and Saul Alinsky, so they know that, whatever their differing view on the power that should be granted in the name of governmental institutions, there is a fundamental truth to the idea that if people exercise their rights of citizenship in a democracy, there will be a mutual identity between people and government.   

 

The world of knowledge is a limitless sky under which one can know so much, yearn for much more, stay forever young, forever interested, always engaged, never bored.

 

If education is imparted in the proper spirit, with attention to cultural enrichment, civic preparation, and professional satisfaction, the latter becomes a natural extension of the first two purposes of an excellent education.  These three components together have certain unifying themes:   the joy of being alive in the world of knowledge;  the confidence that a solid body of knowing many things brings;  a connection to other people who share as cultural inheritance the literature, art, music, and scientific discovery that their human fellows have produced across the oceans and continents of the globe.

 

A person who possesses the cultural enrichment and the civic preparation that has come with a liberal arts education by definition has acquired the mathematical skill, reading comprehension, and technological knowhow that flow from an excellent education.  A knowledge-heavy education stimulates analysis and discussion with one’s classmates, teachers, and others on the academic journey of the K-12 years. 

 

Such an education provides both the specific skills necessary to undertake additional training for professional specialization;  and the shared knowledge of the human inheritance that promotes productive and rewarding interactions with one’s colleagues in the workplace.

 

Knowledge conjoined with ethics and spirituality is the essence of the happy life.

 

Students of all demographic descriptors are due an excellent education comprised of these constituent elements of knowledge, ethics, and the opportunity to develop a spiritual sensibility upon the solid foundation of those first two elements.