My mother only has a high school diploma. She also speaks 4 languages, has lived in 6 countries, she has tought children all over the world. She paints, draws and can play three musical instruments.

Would you consider her uneducated?

Anonymous wrote:Also, to answer your question, you have an associates degree--that is education. It would be ignorant to consider you anything but educated.

I'll be very blunt. Associates degrees are typically awarded by community colleges. The classes aren't very rigorous. The admission standards are low. When I meet someone with just an associates degree, I assume that they are either not very bright or lazy or both.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please, any monkey can get a high school diploma, doesn't take much to get that anymore. Think about some of the people you went to high school with.

Any sort of post-high school degree would denote being educated. However, when you speak of education, what does this mean? Educated in what?

And the junk about naming 5 operas--I get what that poster was getting at (intellectual curiosity beyond what you 'need to know', but it's more about learning things just because--what if you can't name 5 operas and their composers, but you can speak very intelligently about Ptolemic Egypt, for example? You are still educated (moreso--memorization isn't a function of analytical thinking.)

Exactly. That stupid post about reciting poems and the dates of wars and operas - that's just memorization. Anyone, anywhere, can spit that crap out. It means absolutely nothing.

I was certainly not suggesting anyone go out and try to memorize these things. And of course the list of facts and concepts I chose, and the areas those factoids represent is very random and subjective. But I do believe that these are the sort of things that a person who received a good secondary education and has some natural curiosity about the world would know and do. Like for example you don't have to love opera, but if you are curious about history and art, and if you read a wide variety of books, there is no way you can't name at least five operas if you think about it.

In formal terms perhaps uneducated describes a person who has not had the opportunity of the benefits of a formal education. However we have all known people in our lives who have graduated from excellent universities, but somehow didn't have a lick of sense or even have any sense of the world around them.

By the same token we have all known people who for one reason or another never had the opportunity to receive a formal education yet had great knowledge and wisdom.

Being educated is not so much a matter of the number of degrees in which an individual holds, but a matter of the quatity of knowledge a person holds and how they use it.

This being said, please know that the lack of a BA/BS Degree or higher will inhibit an individual's abilities to be hired and promoted into managerial positions. There is no point in arguing whether this is fair or not; it's just the way our system works.

Decades ago many smart people were unfairly denied the opportunity to advance their educations. Today, if people are smart, they'll go to college

Anonymous wrote:Please, any monkey can get a high school diploma, doesn't take much to get that anymore. Think about some of the people you went to high school with.

Any sort of post-high school degree would denote being educated. However, when you speak of education, what does this mean? Educated in what?

And the junk about naming 5 operas--I get what that poster was getting at (intellectual curiosity beyond what you 'need to know', but it's more about learning things just because--what if you can't name 5 operas and their composers, but you can speak very intelligently about Ptolemic Egypt, for example? You are still educated (moreso--memorization isn't a function of analytical thinking.)

Exactly. That stupid post about reciting poems and the dates of wars and operas - that's just memorization. Anyone, anywhere, can spit that crap out. It means absolutely nothing.

Please, any monkey can get a high school diploma, doesn't take much to get that anymore. Think about some of the people you went to high school with.

Any sort of post-high school degree would denote being educated. However, when you speak of education, what does this mean? Educated in what?

And the junk about naming 5 operas--I get what that poster was getting at (intellectual curiosity beyond what you 'need to know', but it's more about learning things just because--what if you can't name 5 operas and their composers, but you can speak very intelligently about Ptolemic Egypt, for example? You are still educated (moreso--memorization isn't a function of analytical thinking.)

Anonymous wrote:Someone who doesn't know anything about other cultures or basic history facts. In other words, no sense of who you are in relation to everyone else. I think a curious person can learn these things, no matter if s/he went to college or not.

This, I don't care where you went to school, but if you arent aware of your relationship to the world I consider you uneducated.

I wouldn't consider someone wiht an associated "uneducated", but I would call them "less educated". When I think of uneducated, I think of someone limited in a lot of areas other than just education. But, I'd be lying if I said I woud not consider someone w/ only an associates to be a little less than par on the education front.

Anonymous wrote:Someone who doesn't know anything about other cultures or basic history facts. In other words, no sense of who you are in relation to everyone else. I think a curious person can learn these things, no matter if s/he went to college or not.

+1

PP here--grew up around here and went to private school and have a JD. Still consider the line a high school degree.

Honestly, I view educated and ignorant as two things. I know plenty of educated people who are still ignorant. By ignorant, I don't mean that I don't agree with them politically or even morally but more that they don't know basic facts like who the last few presidents are/were or that Italy is in Europe. That is ignorant. I also know some uneducated people who are anything but ignorant.

That said, in this day and age, I consider someone uneducated who does not have a high school degree or who has not obtained a GED in lieu of a high school degree. College (community or otherwise) and grad school and technical schools all cost money and so that can be a barrier to obtaining those things. I just think that our country provides a free education up to high school and that people who don't take advantage of that are just plain uneducated. If they drop out but then realize they should have gotten that basic degree and go back, that is better. Weird line to draw I guess but that is where I draw it.

Anonymous wrote:I think it's so interesting how many people here think that educated = formal education. By that token, many of America's greatest minds were uneducated.

OP, you don't sound uneducated at all to me - you just sound largely self-educated, and probably with a lot of valuable life experences. In my mind, that's extremely educated.

ITA. Outside this area, most people in the US do NOT have college degrees http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html . The value/importance/desireability of a college degree in this area is far greater than in most places in the US. As a result, I would expect more people on the forum to equate educated = formal education. That doesn't mean it's true.

Anonymous wrote:My inlaws who are very kind & decent people know how to do things in their little town in the UK, but the minute you take them anywhere else, they have the country mouse syndrome. They are definately uneducated by our standards.

My FIL had no idea Pepsi and Coke were different brands, has horrific table manners and feels physically anxious in anyplace other than pubs or fast food restaurants. He has never tasted garlic, pizza, spaghetti or any other "foreign foods".

My MIL had no idea what Merrill Lynch was when it came up in a conversation, didn't recognize the term neanderthal man and left school at 16.

You're scaring me! OK, one can be unfamiliar with Merril Lynch, but being unfamiliar with garlic?

Anonymous wrote:I speak well, I have travelled, I like to read and learn new things, but I
only have an associates degree. I feel like people look down on me, so I have thought about going back to school for my BA just so people see me as "educated."

Be honest, would you consider someone with an associates to be uneducated?

I wouldn't. I have friends who don't have a lot of formal education but who read a lot and are very knowledgeable about lots of things. But I think other people might nto feel that way.

Someone who doesn't know anything about other cultures or basic history facts. In other words, no sense of who you are in relation to everyone else. I think a curious person can learn these things, no matter if s/he went to college or not.