An interesting comment yesterday "Higher education also encourages people to develop critical thinking skills that contribute to a healthy democratic society." Although I am a great believer in education and have been a learner all of my life including graduating from university in science and my forays into surname research (genealogical research), I do question what is happening in our universities. I was totally dissatisfied with the encampments created by students (and outsiders it would appear if one listens to the news plus some faculty members) in support of Hamas although they claimed it supported the Palestinians. Supporting the Palestinians would have meant bringing the children here to protect them from Hamas as we did the children of the British Isles during World War II and that did not and has not happened. The university students did not take the time to learn the history of the Palestinian people; how they came to Gaza and what their origins were for the most part; they just listened to what people were telling them and that is not critical learning. I do not believe that those encampments contributed to a healthy democratic society; they were blatant threats to the Jewish people and nothing more. It has cost and will cost a lot of money to clean up after them; they should have been made to clean it all up before they left. Sue them so that not one dime goes to Hamas that they collected; very unlikely that the Palestinian people will benefit in any way.
But does that take away from the value of a university education; personally I think one has to think of advanced education on a much larger playing field than just university; we need the community colleges, we have always needed the trades and critical thinking is just as important there and found there as it is at a university. Trades people build our infrastructure albeit with the assistance of engineers and architects, but they are on the ground using the blueprints and they know how to wire a building, how to put plumbing into building and they quickly catch any errors in those blueprints - they do not blindly build a building from a blueprint but use their honed skills to do the best job that they can when the people who are hired are skilled in what they do.
So lets move away from this thought that only universities provide all higher education; all learning beyond high school provides advanced education that hones the skills of critical thinking and advancement in methodology. Perhaps I see all of this differently because I am a graduate of the sciences which come much closer to the trades; my father (a master electrician and heating/cooling specialist) loved to work on some of my physics problems. It was both a learning and teaching experience for him and for me an instructive way to look at some of those questions from the viewpoint of the applier and user. I think getting a degree given that our students are young coming out of high school is an interesting idea although expensive these days and then go on and do what you really want to do with your life whether it be advanced university degrees or community college for practical training (laboratory skills are important in order to get that meaningful job out of science). All of my history background beyond the high school level came to me by intensive reading and my 42 courses in genealogical research taken at St Michaels College/UofT back in 2003 to 2007. I learned a lot in that online set of courses and one in place at the National Archives in Ottawa. It took this science graduate on to a newer plain of activity in retirement and I have never looked back. Life should always have a teaching experience every day in order to make use of all that brain material which has developed through the ages from our earliest Homo sapiens ancestors. If you do not use it; you lose it.
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