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The Ideal Self of The Liberally Educated Individual

The document discusses the ideal self of a liberally educated individual. It defines the ideal self as the person one wants to become based on life experiences and role models. A liberal education exposes students to many areas of study outside their major to broaden their perspectives. The author discusses taking classes in math, biology, English, and plans to take public speaking and psychology to continue developing as a liberally educated person and achieve their ideal self. A liberal education prepares one to make independent judgments and choose between truth and error. The ideal self of a liberally educated individual is someone at home in the world of ideas who can freely select among ideas.

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julieta garcia
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237 views3 pages

The Ideal Self of The Liberally Educated Individual

The document discusses the ideal self of a liberally educated individual. It defines the ideal self as the person one wants to become based on life experiences and role models. A liberal education exposes students to many areas of study outside their major to broaden their perspectives. The author discusses taking classes in math, biology, English, and plans to take public speaking and psychology to continue developing as a liberally educated person and achieve their ideal self. A liberal education prepares one to make independent judgments and choose between truth and error. The ideal self of a liberally educated individual is someone at home in the world of ideas who can freely select among ideas.

Uploaded by

julieta garcia
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Julieta M.

Garcia MAED – I B

Ideal “Self” of the Liberally


Educated Individual

According the Humanistic Psychologist Carl Rogers, the


personality is composed of the Real Self and the Ideal Self. Your Real
Self is who you actually are, while your Ideal Self is the person you want
to be.

The Ideal Self is an idealized version of yourself created out of


what you have learned from your life experiences, the demands of
society, and what you admire in your role models.

For example, your parents are medical doctors who are respected
and admired in the community, and experience tells you that in order to
be happy, you need to be smart and have a high-paying job. Your Ideal
Self might be someone who excels in science subjects, spends a lot of
time studying, and does not get queasy at the sight of blood. If your Real
Self is far from this idealized image, then you might feel dissatisfied with
your life and consider yourself a failure.

The idea of a liberal education is what universities are moving


towards. A liberally educated person is someone whom is
educated in many different areas other than their major area of
study. Colleges encompass a liberal education in their curriculum
by including a liberal studies program. A liberal studies program
requires certain courses, and various electives outside a student’s
major. The reason for these required classes is to broaden the
minds of the students, so they can tolerate different views and
understand the behaviors of different people they may encounter in
their lives.

The first year of college for me, has been productive in


starting to become liberally educated. I have taken four classes
outside of my major, which is hotel and restaurant management.
The outside classes I have taken are math, biology, and two
English courses. I feel that taking these classes is going to help me
in my career and in life. For example I want to be a chef, chefs have
to know how to use math properly. If a chef does not have proper
math skills and he needs to increase, or reduce a recipe the food
will not turn out as it should be. This in turn would limit his ability to
perform his job properly. This example is just one a many reasons
why being Ideal Self of the liberally educated is a necessity in
today’s world.

The extra classes that I have taken thus far are certainly not
enough for me to be liberally educated. I need to learn as much as I
possibly can while I am at college, to consider myself a liberally
educated person. The next step for me to become liberally educated
is next semester, I am going to take public speaking. Public
speaking will help me in everything I ever do, because people skills
are the most important skill to have. A couple semesters down the
road I know that I will be taking a Shakespeare course because
being able to understand Shakespeare will greatly improve my
ability to read and understand literature. Another step I am going to
take in becoming liberally educated will be taking psychology
courses. Understanding human nature and the human brain are
very important in communicating properly with people who have
different views and beliefs than I do.

A liberal education specifically prepares for the achievement


of freedom. Of this there is interesting corroboration in the word
itself. "Liberal" comes from a Latin term signifying "free," and
historically speaking, liberal education has been designed for the
freemen of a state. Its content and method have been designed to
develop the mind and the character in making choices between
truth and error, between right and wrong. For liberal education
introduces one to the principles of things, and it is only with
reference to the principles of things, that such judgments are at all
possible. The mere facts about a subject, which may come
marching in monotonous array, do not speak for themselves. They
speak only through an interpreter, as it were, and the interpreter
has to be those general ideas derived from an understanding of the
nature of language, of logic, and of mathematics, and of ethics and
politics. The individual who is trained in these basic disciplines is
able to confront any fact with the reality of his freedom to choose.
This is the way in which liberal education liberates.
Finally, therefore, we are brought to see that Ideal Self of the
Liberally Educated Individual education for in is for goodness. How
could it be otherwise?

The Ideal Self of the liberally educated individual is the man


who is at home in the world of ideas. And because he has achieved
a true selfhood by realizing that he is a creature of free choice, he
can select among ideas in the light of the relations he has found to
obtain among them. Just as he is not the slave of another man, with
his freedom of choice of work taken from him, so he is not the slave
of a political state, shielded by his "superiors" from contact with
error and evil. The idea of virtue is assimilated and grows into
character through exercise, which means freedom of action in a
world in which not all things are good. This truth has never been put
more eloquently than by the poet Milton.

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised and


unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but
slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run
for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not
innocence into the world; we bring impurity much rather; that
which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.

prepared By:

JULIETA M. GARCIA

MAED- I B

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