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TDeG's avatar

I’ve always said that my liberal arts education taught me how to think, to evaluate, to consider. There’s nothing more valuable.

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John Crane's avatar

I am a teacher, so I may be biased. Education taught me to be a critical thinker. One of my greatest professors was a professor of Islamic architecture. I did a summer abroad with him in Istanbul. I remember going with him to the Edirne Mosque, one of the most beautiful of Sinan's mosques. Inside, he told us there were 18 "mistakes" or unlikely changes made to the mosque over the years. Our job was to find them. We spent a long time looking around the mosque, coming to him with our ideas. He would often just ask us more questions such as, "What did you expect to see?" or "How do you think that they should have done it?" . And I remember the feeling of pride when he looked at you said, "That is very insightful."

This became the model for my teaching for the last 38 years. Ask questions, rather than making definitive statements. Be able to justify your thinking. And propose solutions, don't just criticize. A master teacher who went beyond having us memorize and then identify the typical characteristics of a 16th century Ottoman mosque.

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