Reflecting on what I thought college would be like

​I have been reflecting about what I thought college would be like when I was young compared to what I experienced. What I thought was all fuzzy to me now, but I did think that there would be more group discussions and class discussions. What I found was those group projects were one or two people doing most of the work individually and then others getting grades they did not earn because you cared more. I knew that college would require reading and assignments, but I had this image of more group discussion. That did not happen to me. I spent a lot of time alone working, trying to balance work and school. Prepare lab reports, running tests based on those reports that I had no idea why I needed to do the experiment or what I was to gain from it. As a young person, I had an image of having discussions in class and plenty of reading assignments. I remember watching the TV show The Paper Chase. That definitely swayed my thinking.
In the book “A Thomas Jefferson Education” by Oliver DeMille, it shares a list of essential skills from Harvard School of Law:

1.  The ability to define problems without guides.
2. The ability to ask hard questions which challenge prevailing assumptions.
3. The ability to quickly assimilate needed data from masses of irrelevant information.
4. The ability to work in teams without guidance.
5. The ability to work absolutely alone.
6. The ability to persuade others that your course is the right one.
7. The ability to conceptualize and reorganize information into a new pattern.
8. The ability to discuss ideas with an eye toward application.
9. The ability to think inductively, deductively and dialectically.

 
As I compare the above list with my experience, I think I missed out of several of these skills. I think that I was able to accomplish #3,4, 5, & 8. #2 would put your grade in jeopardy. #6 would be true but the right one was whatever the professors’ thought was true.  New patterns (#7) were challenging the system and discouraged. I still feel that I am lacking an education, but I have several pieces of paper that say I am educated.
I started homeschooling with my eldest child during his kindergarten years due to some personal struggles he was experiencing. I was given the first edition of the A Thomas Jefferson Education book to read.  I read it and put it on the shelf.  I had no idea how to deal with it.  I didn’t have an education like that at all.  I was introduced to the TJE philosophy several more times before I decided to try parts of it.  I started reading the books in the back.  Finding others to discuss the books with was much harder to do.  I reached out to some online groups to help me out and then attended a seminar put on by Aneladee Milne who was with LEMI (Leadership Education Mentoring Institute) at the time.  I had some life-changing experiences and fumbled my way through implementing this in my own home.  I changed so much about who I was because of this book.  I renegotiated my core phase and started to get to know myself in new ways. One of the ways that I have changed is that I like Wythe skills better. Harvard skills are good too, but I think if I can work to achieve the Wythe skills I will have achieved an education.
  Wythe Skills:

1.  The ability to understand human nature and lead accordingly.
2. The ability to identify needed personal traits and turn them into habits.
3. The ability to establish, maintain and improve lasting relationships.
4. The ability to keep one’s life in proper balance.
5. The ability to discern truth and error regardless of the source, or the delivery.
6. The ability to discern true from right.
7. The ability and discipline to do right.
8. The ability and discipline to constantly improve.

Achieving both sets of skills, that would be pretty awesome.