The following is an unedited report from a Western Carolina University MAED student in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

What It Means To Be Educated

Donna Brown

Grade 5 Coordinator, Grange Hill Primary School, Westmoreland, Jamaica

When I was a child, people around me usually speak about others who are “educated” as people who have been to higher institutions of learning and have achieved for themselves some form of certificate or credential that would suggest that they are now a professional in a certain field and has a title.  Those who did not embark on this journey were not regarded as educated.  Needless to say in those days, based on this perspective, majority of the persons in my community were considered to be uneducated.  Even if a person has a certain skill that enables him or her to earn a living, he or she was not considered educated if he or she did not undergo some form of formal training. Continue reading →

Educators at Western Alamance Middle School (WAMS) in Elon, NC, recently discussed their definitions of the educated person.  As part of that activity, forty-eight (48) school personnel answered the following three questions on a half-sheet of paper:

1. What do you think it means to be educated?

2. Which of the six virtues (understanding, imagination, strength, courage, humility and generosity) do you feel are the most important and why?

3. How do you try and incorporate these in your classroom?

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