Education is something that many have said much about. Most of these are complex or vague. Consider the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s saying that education is ‘an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity. There have been many attempts to explain this description, but none have entirely satisfied my curiosity. Alternatively, the English essayist Joseph Addison has to say on education: What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. This, too, has a great many explanations and elaborations. But does it tell us what education is? Does it tell us why we need education?
Not really, since the concept of the soul is, to date, a shadowy area, so how can we begin to comprehend what everyone claims is essential to life nowadays? To put it simply, education is a process of training our mind so that we can apply it in a field of our choice, which is why we have education, not as a single seamless entity but as a whole made up of various divisions: music education, scientific and technological education, art education, even teacher education!
Education can be considered similar to picking and eating fruit. Selecting a particular fruit on the tree is akin to choosing a field to get an education. We get our first taste of the subject when we bite into it. As we chew on the bitten portion, we begin to understand its various aspects – the flavors, textures, intricacies, and complexities of it – and when we are ready to move on to the next portion, we swallow what we have assimilated so far so that it can be used for further application. The tree we get the fruit from is the entire body of past thinkers’ teachings, and the voice that tells us which fruit to pick is the interpreter of that knowledge: the teacher.
Light plays a central role in education – literally and metaphorically – for visual inputs are the best learned. Throughout the lifelong course of education (no, it’s not like school or college, which ends after a fixed time), we know about things that always were, still are, and always will be around us, waiting to be recognized and acknowledged. Without light – of the sun or electrical – we would miss out on a whole world of knowledge. This is where phrases like ‘light of knowledge, ‘throw light on the matter, ‘kept in the dark, and so on came from.
You might be thinking, how can we narrow the infinite field of knowledge to select what we need or want to know? This is where the part on ‘training the mind’ comes in. As psychology tells us, the mind is the center of cognitive faculties that enable consciousness, thinking, perception, and judgment. It is the kitchen for the information we acquire, where we can season and prepare the bits and pieces of data into comprehensive knowledge. Like any good kitchen, the mind has infinite capabilities (which is often the reason for the confusion among us youth when deciding on a particular field to ‘specialize in’ for higher education). It, therefore, needs to be trained to make this choice clearer as every good chef needs to know what or not to use for a dish. Unfortunately, our world does not allow us to experiment with our capabilities without being ostracized or reduced to poverty. Thus, there is a need for specialization. And hence the need for education.
Another obvious question would be: How can we get an education? It’s easier to use metaphors and analogies when describing something like this, but a parallel in the real world is sometimes hard to provide. One answer could be a school, college, or university. There are also other means to formally get an education, such as home-schooling, distance learning, etc. These provide a forum to exchange knowledge – where we can gain and give. This is a guided and restricted form of education, especially in the Indian scenario. Finding an excellent school to tailor our instruction to our needs and interests is difficult. Often, we fail to avail ourselves of the opportunity, even if it is within our reach.
Peer pressure, our parents and elders’ wants, whims and wishes, and societal trends all play a role in influencing us. And this often has an adverse effect, with the student being unable to cope with the contradictory inputs and buckling under the combined pressure. An educational system where students can fulfill their desires and not bow to transient trends is necessary to develop and realize one’s full potential properly. The famous English poet John Keats could be an example of how this can help. Trained to become a doctor, Keats renounced his apothecary’s license to follow his desire, eventually creating a path for himself that no one else has quite been able to match.
Education is not just a pathway to money, as is often considered nowadays. The fact that it provides a doorway to affluence is secondary. Education is, first and foremost, a source of joy and pleasure that is also a means of enhancing our capabilities. It is a landing that provides us with infinite doorways to choose to continue, each leading to a different yet interconnected walk of life (after all, how can we forget that science and philosophy, despite being at odds with one another, go back beyond human comprehension?).
The need for humans to lead a productive and satisfactory life has long been debated. Yet one point stands clear in this debate: along with the necessities of food, clothing, and shelter, education is essential, especially in today’s material world. After all, without education, one cannot gain employment; without a job, one cannot fulfill their basic needs and is considered a failure by modern society.
The knowledge we gain through our guided education is helpful for life because we will be required to achieve and maintain employment, a must to be accepted in society. Not having a job is enough to label you lazy, a failure, or even weird or odd. And any employer will require you to have a thorough knowledge of your field, which is readily available for the taking through education.
Education provides us with an endless canvas. How much of it we put into use is up to us. New fields seem to emerge daily – parapsychology, particle physics, and noetics, to name a few. Although relatively ‘unknown’ or ‘obscure’, these are as important as others. The flood of engineers and accountants India faces seems to have no end. They are becoming flat characters in the play of life: although given names like ‘security of future’, lust for a fat wallet seems to be the only motivation. Easy money is apparently all people seem to think of.
On the other hand, billions of people worldwide want to get an education but cannot due to poverty, geographical isolation, familial conditions, or ignorance. Like the Lady Law, education is blind to the faults or favors of those who take a sip from its pool. The people who cannot get to its banks because they are dragged back by the brambles of economic, social, or cultural shortcomings must endure a life full of superstition, fear, hopelessness, helplessness, poverty, and exclusion. The literate but uneducated are considered equal to the illiterate as their energy goes to waste (not everyone is the Old English poet Cædmon, after all). We must, however, keep in mind that this ‘education’ is career-oriented – a trait that has emerged in the past decades.
Let us now consider another angle. So far, we have talked about the relevance of education in the tangible corporeal world. But, being human beings, the intangible yet equally expansive world of our feelings is equally important. Education also plays a significant role in helping us find our niche here. We, humans, are inherently social. Even ‘loners’ have at least one person in their confidence. The more solitary one is, the stronger the bond is with those with whom one interacts regularly. Even those with large friend circles have an inner circle of those they trust. So, where do these friends come from? Most of our friends and acquaintances come from school, college, and our workplace, and education is the line connecting these dots.
We go to school and college to get an education, as do those who become our friends. We talk about things we have learned somewhere down the line: academically, through music, film, news bulletins, books, etc. These, too, are an essential part of our education. Academia alone is not enough to make us a complete person. It is vital, but our character and personality depend on our education. Growing up, we learn new things and experience various feelings and emotions. Events and situations, too, play an important part in education. Growing up, we quarreled with our parents. These sometimes go downhill over time and ruin the parent-child relationship. Alternatively, it can also teach us to give people space and motivate us to understand before unthinkingly contradicting. Regardless of that outcome, it teaches us what not to do when we take up the mantle of parenthood. Whether we put it to use is, of course, a completely different question altogether.
Besides academic information, schools also impart social education. Sometimes, they teach us by pointing out our mistakes and what we should or shouldn’t do in a particular situation. For instance, we learn to stand up and greet a teacher when they enter our classroom. We also learn to respect our higher-ups and when to follow instructions without question. This gives us an idea of the norms of society. Education teaches us control. It tells us what is acceptable behavior and what isn’t in a particular environment. Experience, yet another form of education, often teaches us when to exercise caution and be spontaneous.
For example, at an informal gathering like a house party, it is acceptable – even expected – to wear casual clothes. Also, we can be more accessible in expressing ourselves: we can talk over one another, raise our voices, etc. In an office party or a similar formal gathering, on the other hand, a specific code of conduct is expected to be followed. A professional front – in both mannerism and appearance – has to be maintained. Formal attire is required, and an unruly or unkempt appearance must be avoided. We also learn these things through books, entertainment, word of mouth, etc. Therefore, education and its imparting is also an intimate and implicit part of our social life.
Education is a significant source of mental contentment. There is a simple, innocent pleasure in gaining knowledge. As sentient living beings, we humans are inherently curious. Fulfilling that curiosity paves the way for further questions to be answered for the thirst for knowledge to become a quest for more. Also, considering the level of competition nowadays, every little snippet of information and what our peers know gives us an edge in the rat race of modern life. And success because of that slight edge gives us a great deal of satisfaction, joy, and pride: the boost to our self-esteem essential to our well-being, mental and, thereby, physical.
A complete individual leads a wholesome life. They have both contentment with their material possessions and mental satisfaction in their current place in life. Hence, the whole individual has found a balance between the material and immaterial worlds: one who has both access to resources and the means to enjoy them; the ad has both good material possessions and happiness in life. And what makes all this possible but education?
Leave a Reply