Fellow toastmasters and welcomed guests, a few days ago, one of my friends posted an article on a social network asking the question “what is real education”? The question drew my interest and motivated me to do some research. My understanding from my research is that by “real education” the article was talking about “Liberal Education”.
What is Liberal Education? How can Liberal education benefit people?
Liberal Education is an approach to learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. It is more a way of studying than a specific course or field of study.
Here are three among many of benefits of liberal education.
Number one - Liberal education does not teach specific skills but can prepare us for ANY fields of specific skill, or profession.
The ex-president of Yale University Richard Levin pointed out that liberal education differs fundamentally from professional education or vocational training. It is not intended to develop specific skills and its teachings are more general.
Liberal education serves as a foundation to most professional studies and helps to develop many of the skills and abilities that are needed in the contemporary workplace and also helps people to become independent, well-rounded and thoughtful individuals.
The second benefit I would like to talk about is that Liberal education does not change our living environments, but it can change the way we think.
Mr. Levin has also said that the essence of liberal education is to develop the freedom to think critically and independently, to cultivate one’s mind to its full potential…
Liberal education enables us to think differently. The perfect example to this point would be from the famous writer David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech at Kenyon College. In his speech, Wallace first told a short story.
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how's the water?” And the two young ?sh swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
What is water? The fishes know how to swim, but they don’t know what water is, they don’t know what environment and surroundings they are in. How much similarity is there between this situation compared with the human society we are in today? – we often slip into our mind and are unaware what realities are. As Wallace also said, the immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.
He pointed out – although it is socially repulsive, basic self-centeredness is our default-setting, hard-wired into our heads. Because other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, and real. However, we do have option of getting free of our natural, hard-wired default-setting by educating ourselves and changing the way how we think.
He gave an example of one’s average day, you get up in the morning, go to your challenging work for 9 or 10 hours, at the end of day, you are tired and stressed out, yet you still need to do grocery shopping. You have to wander all over the huge, over lit store's crowded aisles to ?nd the stu? you want, go through the long check-out line, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush-hour tra?c.
In this case, if we don’t make a conscious decision about how to think, we are going to be angry and miserable every time, because our natural default-setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way.
Thinking this way is our natural default-setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that we experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when we are operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the absolute center of the world.
The thing is - there are di?erent ways to think about these kinds of situations. Maybe the SUV that just cut me o? is being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a way bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am — it is actually I who am in his way. Or maybe everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have much harder, more tedious or painful lives than I do.
Learning how to think or think differently and how to see thing whole is a big part of liberal education.
It helps us to be more conscious and aware enough to choose what we pay attention to, to choose how we construct meaning from experience and to be more compassionate.
The third benefit is - By making conscious decisions about how to think, people can achieve happiness
As just mentioned, liberal education change people how to think and helps people to be more conscious and compassionate.
Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to help physical, or emotional hurts or pains of another. A lot of people found that helping others is the number one thing that makes them happy.
“Happiness can be learned” said by the famous Harvard lecturer Tal Ben-Shahar who taught Positive Psychology and the Science of Happiness. He has also focused on the importance of learning to paying attention to reality, relationships, showing appreciations that contribute greatly to positive emotions and one’s happiness. These types of learning, as part of liberal education eventually help to lead to a happier life.
And who here does not want to lead a happier life?? Is it any wonder why my friend’s article caught my attention? It is the connection between liberal education and happiness! Sometimes they may not have direct connection, we just need to change the way how we think! Let’s take our life long liberal education!
GO PLACIDLY amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Liberal Education 是大学本科教育的一部分，我的理解这是比较务实的部分，培养个人在工作，生活和行使公民权和义务的能力，就像中文说的授人以渔而不是授人以鱼。放狗搜了下:
Liberal education is an approach to undergraduate education that promotes integration of learning across the curriculum and cocurriculum, and between academic and experiential learning, in order to develop specific learning outcomes that are essential for work, citizenship, and life.
Fellow toastmasters and welcomed guests, a few days ago, one of my friends posted an article on a social network asking the question “what is real education”? The question drew my interest and motivated me to do some research. My understanding from my research is that by “real education” the article was talking about “Liberal Education”.
What is Liberal Education? How can Liberal education benefit people?
Liberal Education is an approach to learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. It is more a way of studying than a specific course or field of study.
Here are three among many of benefits of liberal education.
Number one - Liberal education does not teach specific skills but can prepare us for ANY fields of specific skill, or profession.
The ex-president of Yale University Richard Levin pointed out that liberal education differs fundamentally from professional education or vocational training. It is not intended to develop specific skills and its teachings are more general.
Liberal education serves as a foundation to most professional studies and helps to develop many of the skills and abilities that are needed in the contemporary workplace and also helps people to become independent, well-rounded and thoughtful individuals.
The second benefit I would like to talk about is that Liberal education does not change our living environments, but it can change the way we think.
Mr. Levin has also said that the essence of liberal education is to develop the freedom to think critically and independently, to cultivate one’s mind to its full potential…
Liberal education enables us to think differently. The perfect example to this point would be from the famous writer David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech at Kenyon College. In his speech, Wallace first told a short story.
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how's the water?” And the two young ?sh swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
What is water? The fishes know how to swim, but they don’t know what water is, they don’t know what environment and surroundings they are in. How much similarity is there between this situation compared with the human society we are in today? – we often slip into our mind and are unaware what realities are. As Wallace also said, the immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.
He pointed out – although it is socially repulsive, basic self-centeredness is our default-setting, hard-wired into our heads. Because other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, and real. However, we do have option of getting free of our natural, hard-wired default-setting by educating ourselves and changing the way how we think.
He gave an example of one’s average day, you get up in the morning, go to your challenging work for 9 or 10 hours, at the end of day, you are tired and stressed out, yet you still need to do grocery shopping. You have to wander all over the huge, over lit store's crowded aisles to ?nd the stu? you want, go through the long check-out line, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush-hour tra?c.
In this case, if we don’t make a conscious decision about how to think, we are going to be angry and miserable every time, because our natural default-setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way.
Thinking this way is our natural default-setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that we experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when we are operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the absolute center of the world.
The thing is - there are di?erent ways to think about these kinds of situations. Maybe the SUV that just cut me o? is being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a way bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am — it is actually I who am in his way. Or maybe everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have much harder, more tedious or painful lives than I do.
Learning how to think or think differently and how to see thing whole is a big part of liberal education.
It helps us to be more conscious and aware enough to choose what we pay attention to, to choose how we construct meaning from experience and to be more compassionate.
The third benefit is - By making conscious decisions about how to think, people can achieve happiness
As just mentioned, liberal education change people how to think and helps people to be more conscious and compassionate.
Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to help physical, or emotional hurts or pains of another. A lot of people found that helping others is the number one thing that makes them happy.
“Happiness can be learned” said by the famous Harvard lecturer Tal Ben-Shahar who taught Positive Psychology and the Science of Happiness. He has also focused on the importance of learning to paying attention to reality, relationships, showing appreciations that contribute greatly to positive emotions and one’s happiness. These types of learning, as part of liberal education eventually help to lead to a happier life.
And who here does not want to lead a happier life?? Is it any wonder why my friend’s article caught my attention? It is the connection between liberal education and happiness! Sometimes they may not have direct connection, we just need to change the way how we think! Let’s take our life long liberal education!
更多我的博客文章>>> 窗外，门外，斑斓的秋色。。。 我家浴室的小装饰 院子里的秋色 家里老外做的中秋月饼 山东烧鸡和上海醉鸡
随着中国对外开放的深入，世界在逐渐了解中国，中国人也在逐渐了解世界的异性。他们走进了我们的生活，有的甚至成为了我们生活中的一分子。于是，有些中国人漂洋过海，嫁给了外国男人或者娶了外国女孩。自上世纪80年代初期以来，中国跨国婚姻的登记数几乎是逐年繁荣昌盛。1982年，中国跨国婚姻登记数为14193对，而到了1997年已达50773对，涉及53个国家和地区。
人们在惊叹这一段段惊世未了情的同时，却忽视了故事背后的酸甜苦辣欢乐痛苦。由于文化的差异的婚姻观念，以及成家的目的各有不同，在婚姻中演绎了一幕幕悲喜剧，跨国婚姻并不像我们想像的那么浪漫，那么甜蜜。来自不同国家的两口子告诫我们，其实与任何一段婚姻一样，跨国婚姻，不仅仅是相爱。
日本男性最愿意娶中国女性
随着中国人逐步走向世界，以工作、学习和生活为目的旅居日本的中国人在逐渐增加。在这些中国人中，一些女性嫁给了日本人为妻。日本政府公布的一项统计数据表明，随着日本的国际化程度提高，国际婚姻也在与日俱增，特别是日本男子娶外国女子为妻的越来越多，其中娶中国女子为妻的比例最高。
随着日本人口增长率一年比一年低，40多岁的一般日本男性现在很难找到二三十岁的日本女性为妻，原因是如今日本女性都要求较高的生活水准，而一般的40多岁的日本男人的经济条件大多都达不到她们的要求。于是，这些日本男子尽快解决单身寂寞的最佳办法就是把寻求配偶的目标转向国外。一般日本人都认为，中国人的长相与日本人很像，饮食差异也不大，都使用筷子，都会写汉字，等等。
中澳婚姻温而不热澳大利亚和中国是地球上一南一北两个国家，文化背景十分不同，但是两国间的联姻数量却一直居高不下。这当中，除了经济的吸引和文化的好奇等有利因素之外，也存在许多困难和误解尽管中澳交流年年发展，但是两国婚姻并没有出现过突增或者突降的情况，近几年每年结婚人数比例的增长基本不超过7%，偶尔还有降低。这种平缓增长一方面说明中国人在澳大利亚的生活趋于稳定，另一方面也说明近几年中澳婚姻交流没有什么突然的变化。
澳大利亚移民局对中澳婚姻的签证一直控制严格。首先他们要证明双方婚姻关系的真实性和持久性，而且这种考核对申请人所处的特殊社会环境，文化传统，经济现状，家庭中长辈参与程序和申请人对婚后的安排，并未加以深入考察，而是直接套用澳大利亚的各种观念、行为标准和移民部政策，罗列出一串串申请人未能符合的条件或标准。所以有时候申请人在面试时一个不经意的回答会成为拒签理由之一；有时，申请人在婚姻生活中的矛盾或不和，尽管双方和好如初，但仍然会被移民官抓住把柄赫然成为拒签的重要理由之一。从2002年12月开始，澳大利亚立法规定实施新的结婚证书颁布办法，所有要登记结婚的配偶，可以先谈好彼此的结婚条件，包括离婚时财产如何分配，小孩如何教育，要到什么地方度假，甚至一周做爱几次，等等。
许多在悉尼的中国人对此无法理解，但是澳大利亚人对此另有看法，悉尼大学正要结婚的安德森教授就认为，这样很清楚，也是一种互相尊重对方的表现。
中澳跨国婚姻的离婚率一直居高不下，专家说原因和澳大利亚整体婚姻文化习惯有关。澳大利亚是有名的家庭观念差的国家，在世界各国夫妻离婚率排到前三，第一是美国。40岁以上的澳大利亚男人中，有过离婚记录的占全体总数的40%。所以澳大利亚人把婚姻看得比较淡。
中德联姻喜忧参半
上海的磁浮列车开通了，来自德国慕尼黑的电机商人彼得先生感到非常兴奋。他很清楚，中德两国合作的磁浮列车项目的开始意味着中德两国在上海的合作前途无量，对他个人来说，这绝对有助于实现他一直以来的梦想——在上海找一个中国媳妇。“两国交流越来越多，中国姑娘对我们越来越不陌生，我在工作中和她们交流越来越容易。”彼得操着生硬的汉语说。据了解，彼得先生身边有这种想法的德国小伙子还有不少。
德国人把婚姻家庭看得很重，这一点和中国人很相似。如此他们认为应当有了一定经济基础才能结婚，否则婚姻会不稳定。也因此，德国人办理跨国结婚的手续非常烦琐。登记结婚的话，首先要把从小到大各种证件能办上的都办上。这些文件必须首先经过中国公证机构公证，再经中国外交部确认，最后由德国驻中国大使馆认证后再邮寄到德国，由在德国注册的翻译公司译成德语，后再递交给婚姻登记处。但最终能否结婚不是由婚姻登记处说了算，所有文件都得送德国各州最高法院由法院决定。一般来说，没四个月这套程序批不下来。乃至有一种说法建议凡欲和德国人结婚者转道丹麦办理，那里三天就够了
liberal education 提供了why. 而具体的职业教育是what and how.
没有这个why, 人在碰到坎的时候就过不去。 有了这个why, 才能迈过去
另外，我经常用的巴尔的摩的Desiderata也是控制我思维和行为的一个GU胶。
每当我心烦意乱时，定下心来，思索一下我下面应该怎么做，做什么。
GO PLACIDLY amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
https://bbs.wenxuecity.com/tzlc/1427680.html
你看了就行了，我删了啊
本地人， 知道得比我多.
然后那些计算都是他弄
算出来结果是每月$300
那就不划算了. 我比较冲动
但我是听道理的
Liberal Education 是大学本科教育的一部分，我的理解这是比较务实的部分，培养个人在工作，生活和行使公民权和义务的能力，就像中文说的授人以渔而不是授人以鱼。放狗搜了下:
Liberal education is an approach to undergraduate education that promotes integration of learning across the curriculum and cocurriculum, and between academic and experiential learning, in order to develop specific learning outcomes that are essential for work, citizenship, and life.
对吧？
就是训练思辨能力，交流能力，想象力，创作力等等。
比如说，大学里典型的liberal arts专业有：history, social science, philosophy 等等。
对应的是vocational 的专业：nursing, accounting, engineering 等等。
美国大学的本科，不管啥专业，都必须修不少人文课
语言逻辑是有惯性的。比如“追求幸福的能力”就不是中文原有的，中文会说立身立本。身啊本的都立了（理想），吃啥苦都是心甘情愿，都是甜的了。再有“素质教育”，几个字写下来就让人敬而远之，其实无非是老辈说的为人，做人，这里头自然涉及到三观，待人接物凡此种种。可惜的是中文的意思层面太多不求精确，不仅如此，隐藏的比暴露出来的多，一个话题讲着讲着就扯远了（有意地或者无意地）。。。
看海外华人的论坛，片汤话不算，稍微正经一点的话题，经常感觉是在读翻译过来的文字
，你我他，少有例外。
https://bbs.wenxuecity.com/kghy/3363794.html