News from the fourth dimension
The Purpose of Education
Everywhere we see the buzz word seems to be education. Be it the government policy or be it the philanthropic activities everyone seems to be talking about education. The government seems to want to increase the amount of expenditure at the grass root levels so as to enhance the quality of life in the country. The general public, at least the richer ones, in the belief that the government is not doing enough, are spending their money on the same goals that the government has. A school in every village is what both the parties are saying.
Going by what the government is saying, the general notion about education is the ability of reading and writing at a very basic level.
Is this not too narrow a definition? Education is more than just the ability to read and write. That is called literacy. Education has to be something more than just that. Taking from what Mark Twain said, never let school interfere with your education. Thus the education of the people can not be limited to a school.
The line of Twain sums up what education is all about. Educating a person is to give him the ability to think logically about a situation and come to a decision. Learning without the application is not education. It is to learn by rote.
This can not be taught. This has to be kindled in a student, a fire in the belly to want to know, to understand and to apply.
Thus was Descartes famously said, “Cogito Ergo Sum” (to mean I think, there fore I am) would be the state that each student has to be brought to by the education that he/she receives, the ability to think and learn and not just to read and write.
Phi says: In the place of cogito ergo sum, we are in a state of cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum. To mean, I think that I think, therefore I think I am.
Everywhere we see the buzz word seems to be education. Be it the government policy or be it the philanthropic activities everyone seems to be talking about education. The government seems to want to increase the amount of expenditure at the grass root levels so as to enhance the quality of life in the country. The general public, at least the richer ones, in the belief that the government is not doing enough, are spending their money on the same goals that the government has. A school in every village is what both the parties are saying.
Going by what the government is saying, the general notion about education is the ability of reading and writing at a very basic level.
Is this not too narrow a definition? Education is more than just the ability to read and write. That is called literacy. Education has to be something more than just that. Taking from what Mark Twain said, never let school interfere with your education. Thus the education of the people can not be limited to a school.
The line of Twain sums up what education is all about. Educating a person is to give him the ability to think logically about a situation and come to a decision. Learning without the application is not education. It is to learn by rote.
This can not be taught. This has to be kindled in a student, a fire in the belly to want to know, to understand and to apply.
Thus was Descartes famously said, “Cogito Ergo Sum” (to mean I think, there fore I am) would be the state that each student has to be brought to by the education that he/she receives, the ability to think and learn and not just to read and write.
Phi says: In the place of cogito ergo sum, we are in a state of cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum. To mean, I think that I think, therefore I think I am.
posted by The Mad Magazine at
1:12 AM
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