Question 2--Has your educational career helped you experience Paideia, in that you have formed an attention to the meaningful as opposed to a focus on the trivial? Address this question with a particular focus on your future as a citizen, in terms of your ability to attend to meaningful issues of democracy versus trivial "news of the day" (such as who won an Oscar, what is the #1 movie, who will win the World Series?)

Paideia was, to the Ancient Greeks, "the process of educating man into his true form, the real and genuine human nature." (see http://www.reference.com/search?r=13&q=Paideia). When taking the American educational career into consideration, we must begin to wonder whether it is teaching us to find our true form, or whether it is guiding us down a path permeated with trivial, unmeaningful facts.

For me, my educational experience has been anything but unproductive. I have a lengthy resumé; classes such as english, health, geometry, calculus, physics, and even spanish are all boast-worthy contestants. I can tell you the name of the general who led the 20th Maine Regiment into the Battle of Gettysburg, I can recite Brutus' funeral speech in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, and heck, I can even find you the limit of f(x) as x approaches negative infinity. Yes, I've done my best in making the most out of the education offered to me. What more could you ask for? If the American Dream was a novel, it would include chapters such as: Go to School and Get Good Grades, Graduate, College, Successful Job, Retirement. The first two chapters of my quest are almost completed. Yet, I begin to wonder, where are those chapters that touch on life's key concepts such as integrity, purpose, and meaning? Why isn't the high school student required to take courses that entail ethics, philosophy, environmental awareness, or community involvement? My educational experience has been productive, but the products are (for the most part) trivial, unmeaningful facts. I've learned the most of what it means to be a democratic citizen through the experiences with my family, friends, and anywhere else outside the classroom. Much of our time spent as a youth is in the classroom, so, we can see how this lack of Padeiaic knowledge may serve a problem.

"Please, as you pursue your prosperity, don't forget magnaminity - greatness of character." (Cornel West). Hopefully, the American educational system might one day focus on this pursuit. We need to look back at the ancient Greeks; the inventors of Socratic questioning. Our vastness of facts and knowledge that we strive for is a great thing, but it is when we learn how to apply that knowledge to the situations in life that makes it greater.