I’m working on a presentation now and am wrestling with a very basic question.
What is education?
Looking for a quote, I stumbled across an interesting assembly of education quotes with a thought provoking observation:
One must search diligently to find laudatory comments on education (other than those pious platitudes which are fodder for commencement speeches). It appears that most persons who have achieved fame and success in the world of ideas are cynical about formal education. These people are a select few, who often achieved success in spite of their education, or even without it. As has been said, the clever largely educate themselves, those less able aren’t sufficiently clever or imaginative to benefit much from education. English historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) put it this way: “The power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.”
So what is education? And what is it about formal education that brings out the wit in Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Beatrix Potter and countless others?
When you are done pondering that, take a moment to join the Summer Party going on at this week’s Carnival of Homeschooling.
What is education?
Play.
What is education?
Apprenticeship.
I like the Websters 1828 dictionary definition.
“EDUCA’TION, n. [L. educatio.] The bringing up, as of a child, instruction; formation of manners. Education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations. To give children a good education in manners, arts and science, is important; to give them a religious education is indispensable; and an immense responsibility rests on parents and guardians who neglect these duties.”
Maybe in 1828 that was education.
Instruction and discipline to fit them for their future station??
“stations” — plural. I think that does make a difference. Yes, this is an 1828 definition, but is nonetheless useful for reflecting on how we define & pursue education for ourselves today. Preparation for the future is only one of the goals listed here, and I think none of them are inherently out of date.
Wow.
Left speechless by that assertion, I will counter with how unacceptably out-of-date I see education definitions from 1828 (the only thing we should emulate imo is the self-teaching):
What is education?
A combination of several things, not meant to over simplify:
The cultivation of a soul, a person – by leading them in the search for truth, knowledge, understanding, wisdom (the internal, spiritual, mental life) while nourishing them on their journey to fulfill their earthly, physical vocation and spiritual calling.
When other good and necessary things such as facts/information, curricula, methods, career, skills, etc., become the priority and it becomes merely a transfer of knowledge, the person is forgotten and lost.
I have been collecting favorite quotes about education. Here are several:
“I would have everybody able to read and write and cipher; indeed, I don’t think a man can know too much; but mark you, the knowing of these things is not education; and there are millions of your reading and writing people who are as ignorant as neighbor Norton’s calf.” ~Charles Haddon Spurgeon~ nineteenth century pastor and theologian
“True education is a kind of never ending story-a matter of continual beginnings, of habitual fresh starts, of persistent newness.” ~J.R.R.Tolkien~
“Education is like a tantalizingly perpetual verandah—the initiation of unending beginnings.” ~C.S. Lewis~
“It is a common mistake to think that education is on the level of ideas. No! It is always a transmission of experience. How much sadness, emptiness, and banality there is in the game of academia and footnotes. People are not convinced by reasoning; either they catch fire or they do not.” ~Alexander Schmemann~
“All of life is but a preparation for what comes after…the primer of faith is never closed for the child of God. It’s lessons never end.” ~E.M. Bounds~ nineteenth century pastor and theologian
“There never was a time when the reading public was so large, or so helplessly exposed to the influence of its own time. There never was a time when those who read at all, read so many more books by living authors than books by dead authors. There never was a time so completely parochial, so shut off from the past.” ~T. S. Eliot~
Hi, I am reading Daniel Willingham’s book Why Students Don’t Like School and he does take on your 2nd question re: Twain, Einstein, et al.
A quote from p35 in Ch 2 How Can I Teach Students the Skills They Need?
‘I began this chapter with a quotation from Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” I hope you are now persuaded that Einstein was wrong. Knowledge is more important, because it’s a prerequisite for imagination, or at least for the sort of imagination that leads to problem solving, decision making, and creativity. Other great minds have made similar comments that denigrate the importance of knowledge, as shown in Table 2.’ (the table includes quotes Skinner, Twain, Henry Adams, Whitehead, & Emerson)
I recommend Willingham’s book to any educator even though I have not yet finished it. I find he has validated Charlotte Mason’s ideas as well as others who are popular in the home education arena. He has organized the book into 9 questions that he answers.
He also would be a good resource for home educators wanting to speak to education in general. Comments I have read about his book indicate that these principles are not taught nor practiced in teaching colleges. He obviously does not address the spiritual implications of education and is mainly addressing the classroom teacher yet there is something to learn here for when we engage those who want a good education for their child whether at home or in a school setting. He does put a lot of responsibility on parents to provide a rich home environment for their children.
I once wrote that education is “power of story”:
Hmm, my quick definition would be: Good education is the transmission of knowledge and skills along with the ability to use them well. Learning is the acquisition of the same.
~Luke
@ JJ Ross: I think you may have misconstrued my meaning – I said that none of the goals listed in this specific 1828 definition shared by Christy were out of date. (I did NOT assert that every instance of education in 1828, under whatever circumstance, was exemplary–which statement might have left me speechless as well.
)
A couple things that I appreciate about Chrisy’s 1828-style dictionary definition: The inclusion of character formation as a learnable skill, and that bit of editorializing that places the “immense responsibility” for education on “parents & guardians.” True, we might be a little more free these days about what it means to “fit” a child for his [her] future stations (perhaps looking more to something like Deb’s “vocational journey” idea), and to firmly reject some of the stations that existed then – but isn’t that part of our ongoing reflection on the thoughts, works, & deeds of the past?
Some links to my recent reading that include play, apprenticeship, & character formation in a modern view of education:
D.W. Shaffer’s game-based learning & assessment and D. Narvaez’s approaches to character education as training in ethical skills(PDF).
Good thoughts on stories, JJ Ross.
And I’ll enthusiastically second Barb’s recommendation of Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School? I agree that it might be a good crossover book between home educators and other educators. (I’m just beginning it for an online discussion group.) He does point out that many clever quips & alleged insights on education, amusing & plausible as they may seem, do not hold up to closer scrutiny.
JJ said: “What is education? Play.”
And, as Peter Gray (Freedom to Learn) notes, “Play, by definition, cannot be coerced.”
Freedom to Learn: The roles of play and curiosity as foundations for learning
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn
Well worth reading from the beginning, which can be found here:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/200807/learning-requires-freedom-introduction-new-blog-about-play-curiosity-and-e
Well, it’s not school, though education can potentially happen there. It’s learning about ourselves and our environment, whether that be in books or through actual experiences. Education must encompas things physical, mental, emotional and spiritual to be complete . . . which is why it doesn’t happen in school so much.
I like the 1828 definition because it is more all-encompassing, involving multiple aspects of what we might describe as “parenting.” It isn’t just facts, or just understanding, or just skills, but all these things and more.
It is the bringing up of a child. And irrelevant but interesting to me, much closer to the sense behind the German Erziehung.
What I don’t like about education today, particularly as pushed by Bush’s NCLB and apparently by Obama as well is this sole focus on fitting them for future stations.
This quote struck me (and I think it can be extended to women):
He is to be educated because he is a man, and not because he is to make shoes, nails, and pins.
William Ellery Channing (1780-1842) U.S. Unitarian clergyman and writer.
If one is “getting” an education they are the passive recipient of what someone else thinks they should know. Whether they LEARN it or benefit from that passing of knowledge through various means (whatever the teacher does with the students) is another matter. Being a student enrolled in a class ‘getting’ an edcation does n’t necessarily mean they are then ‘educated’.
So what does it mean to “be educated”?
That is a tricky question. A point I want to make is that a person can teach themselves things and can then be an educated person. This can be from active learning. This can be unrelated to being coerced.
However an ‘educated person’ can also have gotten that way from study through classes, getting degrees etc.
Another question, what is “a learned person”?
I think of education as someone has defined something that should be known and then someone knows it. So one person may think knowing X means a person is educated but another could think knowing Y in that other field makes them educated in Y topic. The content of the education then can shift. A person could be educated in computer programming or practicing medicine or some other field that has nothing to do with the other field that the person is ignorant in.
Thanks Circle Reader for the clarification; you’re right that I read it wrong, to mean “all the goals”. . .
Thanks to Suze for the great play-as-education links, and to Dana for the back-up on not fitting kids to stations.
But — sorry. A clarification of my own.
In 1828 one of the stations to which children were fitted by their education or the deprivation of which thereof, WAS slavery.
Part of the economy, part of the morality, part of the culture, and the manners taught, part of everything in that definition. So if you appreciate and think about history as I know we all here do, you can’t just leave that life-changing reality out of the story.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean that it cannot apply as well to an age where slavery is not involved, indeed where adequate education helps prevent youth from being forced into particular stations, and to understand their own rights and responsibilities as employees, business owners, etc.
I guess we found something we won’t agree on then. Society telling parents it is their “immense duty” to “fit their children for usefulness in their stations” is a form of slavery in any age.
I guess it depends on how you read it. I think you are reading as predetermining what that station will be. I read it as ensuring that they have the ability to support themselves, regardless of how they choose to do so.
[mischevous grin] Then that’s training, not education. . .
mischIevous that should be, using definition number three but not 1, 2 or 4:
“roguishly or slyly teasing, as a glance.”
Is it? I’m not so sure.
Not sure it’s training, or not sure it’s teasing?
It is just that I think training is one part of education. Not for anything in particular, but my daughter at the moment wants to become a veterinarian. Part of why I purchased a virtual dissection program though she is only ten, and a lot of why I’m taking her to a variety of programs at the nature center. When she is old enough, we’ll take her out to the humane society and the zoo to volunteer as well.
I see it more as exploration of a field she is interested in, but it is training as well.
And it is so nice to have Internet again. But I suppose I should be happy that the internet was the worst to come of the storms that have been going on all around us.
Since you’re collecting all sorts of resources, don’t forget this one from last year. We keep it on the front page of our blog:
“Why Education is So Difficult and Contentious” by Kieran Egan
A couple of quotes –
T.S. Eliot’s “Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” cannot be answered if one doesn’t recognize a difference.
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The trouble with promising a revolution in learning is that people expect to see some evidence of it in the learners.
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Can it really be true that our conception of education has three main components, each one of which leads to undesirable results by itself, and which work together only by each one interfering with the adequate implementation of the other two?
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Socializing strives to homogenize; individual development strives to bring out the uniqueness of each person. Hard to aim for both in the same institution and expect success. They constantly pull in opposite directions — the more you do one, the harder it is to do the other. And we expect our schools to do both successfully.
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If one of our aims for an educational institution is the pursuit of academic knowledge, we will interfere with that in all kind of destructive ways if we then impose a social sorting role on the institution, and use academically inappropriate testing to do that social sorting.
Also the social sorting role would be confused because academic prowess — which we are only marginally testing for any way — is hardly the most important determiner of social value.
Or how about education as nothing to do with schooling, a cross between “flow” and “sync”
One more I came across in comments this morning:
“We all have some pretty powerful stories in our families and personal history. The idea of a real education, seems to me, is learning to do something more with it all, than fight.“