William Deresiewicz's Essay 'Learning How To Think'

“Learning how to think,” means that people can think independently, originally, and abstractly. People are beginning to question the way people think in today’s society. The reason we are failing to formulate new ideas or think, is because young adults are educated to be disciplined at a specific area of study. They are not taught to be unique or to stray from the teachings of the professor, instead they are trained to conform. Students take the views of teachers to suck up to them, which causes them to get lost in their own thought and opinion. This leads to the controversy on whether universities are teaching the students what they need to be taught and how effective they are disciplining the students. In William Deresiewicz’s essay, he expresses that solitude is the very aspect of leadership. Solitude means being isolated from human interaction. Leadership means having the

These intellectual virtues include love of truth, honesty, fair-mindedness, humility, perseverance, courage, good listening, perspective-taking and empathy, and wisdom. Barry argued that wisdom was the most significant intellectual virtue. Wisdom provides us knowledge so that we can make the best decision when faced with conflict between intellectual virtues. To see the constraints of a teaching, requires a point of view created in any event incompletely outside that teaching. General education is not a counterfeit; however, it is a fundamental to keep students going in the right direction. General education is used to enhance the knowledge of students so that they can learn for themselves. Barry suggests that the correct route for universities to safeguard themselves is by portraying themselves as nurturers of intellectual virtues. This would resolve the issue on whether colleges are teaching what they should be