Pre-Reading Blog #1

Here you are in college. How’s that working out for you? Consider your educational experience to this point. What are your impressions of education? What do you seek to gain from education? Have you enjoyed your educational experience through high school? Why or why not? Please end your blog with at least one good critical question (refer to "How to Develop a Critical Question").Define the following: Rationalism, Anti-Rationalism, Fundamentalism

I don't really feel as if I'm in college as I'm only taking one class and it's online, although as I sit down to write this blog it's starting to hit me. It's really to early to tell how it's working out except that I've had to rearrange my schedule and priorities a bit. Time will tell.

As I grow older and more responsibilities are placed upon me by raising a family, being a husband and working in a sometimes very stressful job my impression of education is that it is increasing valuable. However, I didn't always think that was the case. Wait.... I did know that education was important and valuable because my parents drilled it into me ever since I can remember. But, being the stubborn person that I am, I didn't listen. Maybe they drilled it in too much and I rebelled against it. Whatever the reason I knew in the back of my mind that education was important and should be sought after, but I've never really held it in very high priority. I always thought that I would get an education through life experience, which I believe to be indispensable, although as I grew up it became clear that a combination of life experience and more formal education would be the key to having a full, complete and rewarding life.

Education gives one the ability to think for themselves and not have to rely solely on what another tells them. It gives one the ability to intelligently question the views and actions of others. It gives one freedom by allowing one to make his or hers own informed choices. Also, on a more practical note education gives one the ability to more easily provide for ones self as far as food, shelter and security. At least in our society the more education you have the higher your earning potential. Further, I believe education adds a sort of richness to life and I'm not talking richness in a monetary way, but in the way that one can interact in more social circles or enjoy an intelligent conversation about more topics beyond simply asking questions about something that one may have never heard about.

What I hope to gain from education is all that I have just mentioned: the ability to more aptly think for myself, to more intelligently question others, to be able to more fully enjoy the intellect of others, and to be able to better provide for myself and my family.

During my high school years I wasn't very present, present in class or present in mind. I wasn't interested in learning. At least not the things I was supposed to be learning in high school. I was more interested in having fun than being in class. And I realize now that I could have had tons of fun in class during high school while getting that all important education that my parents told me about. I believe I had, or still have to some degree, a form of social anxiety that kept me from going to or staying in class during high school. I was a bit shy in that part of my life and maybe I just didn't give it a chance.

How can a parent best ascertain a social disorder in their child and what would be the best way to help that child cope with that disorder? Explain your answer.

According to Webster's New World College Dictionary Fourth Edition the word rationalism is defined as "1 the pricinple or practice of accepting reason as the only authority in deteermining one's opinons or course of action 2 the doctrine that knowledge comes from the intellect in itself without aid from the senses; intellectualism"

Anti-rationalism would be defined as the opposite of rationalism. The opposition of rationalism or against rationalism.

According to Webster's New world College Dictionary Fourth Edition the word fundalmentalism is defines as "1 religious beliefs based on a literal interpretation of the bible, regarded as fundalmental to Christian faith and morals 2 the 20th-cent. movement among some American protestants, based on these beliefs 3 a strict adherance to or interpretation of a doctrine, set of principles, etc., as of a social, legal, political, or religious group or system"