Noam Chomsky - On Being Truly Educated
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Highlights
My name is Noam Chomsky. I'm a retired professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where I have been for 65 years.
I think I can do no better about answering the question of what it means to be truly educated than to go back to some of the classic views on the subject.
For example, the views expressed by the founder of the modern higher education system，William von Humboldt，leading humanist，a figure of the enlightenment who wrote extensively on education and human development and argued.
I think kind of very plausibly that the core principle and requirement of a fulfilled human being is the ability to inquire and create constructively independently without external controls.
To move to a modern counterpart，a leading physicist who talked right here used to tell his classes that it is not important what we cover in the class. It's important what you discover.
To be truly educated, from this point of view, means to be in a position to inquire and create on the basis of the resources available to you, which you've come to appreciate and comprehend，to know where to look，to know how to formulate serious questions，to question a standard doctrine if that's appropriate to find your own way，to shape the questions that are worth pursuing and to develop the path to pursue them.
That means knowing understanding many things, but also much more important than what you have stored in your mind to know where to look, how to look, how to question, how to challenge，how to proceed independently to deal with the challenges that the world presents to you，and that you develop in the course of yourself education and inquiry and investigations in cooperation and solidarity with others.
That's what an educational system should cultivate from kindergarten to graduate school. And in the best cases sometimes does. And that leads to people who are，at least by my standards，well educated.
Translations
🇨🇳 论接受真正的教育
我的名字是诺姆·乔姆斯基。 我是麻省理工学院的一名退休教授，已经在那里工作了 65 年。
我认为，在回答什么是真正的教育这个问题时，最好的办法莫过于回顾一些关于这个问题的经典观点。
例如，现代高等教育体系的创始人、著名人文主义者威廉·冯·洪堡（William von Humboldt）所表达的观点，他是启蒙运动的代表人物，他在教育和人类发展方面写了大量文章，并进行了辩论。
我认为，一个完整的人的核心原则和要求是，在没有外部控制的情况下，具有建设性地独立探索和创造的能力。
换一个现代的例子，一位在这里发言的著名物理学家曾经告诉他的学生，我们在课堂上讲的内容并不重要。重要的是你发现了什么。
从这一观点来看，真正受过教育，意味着能够在你所欣赏理解的现有资源的基础上进行探索和创造，知道到哪里去寻找，知道如何提出严肃的问题，质疑一种标准的学说，如果这种学说适合你自己的方式，形成值得追求的问题，并为追求这些问题开辟道路。
这意味着知道需要理解许多事情，但也比你头脑中记忆的东西重要得多，你要知道到哪里去看，如何去看，如何去质疑，如何去挑战，如何独立地去应对这个世界向你提出的挑战，以及你在自己的教育和调查过程中发展起来，与他人合作和团结。
这是一个教育系统从幼儿园到研究生院应该培养的。在最好的情况下，有时确实如此。这就造就了那些，至少按照我的标准，受过良好教育的人。
