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Friday, June 30, 2017

The WHYs of education?

The WHYs of education?


“People lose their way when they lose their why” says, Michael Hyatt.

We need to know first why we are pursuing some education.

Not mere academic qualification or mere literacy, though they too are equally relevant and important for many aspects of social life.

Then why we need it?

Whether whatever we do in the name of education are they increasing happiness, adding value to the one doing it and then to others?

Whether it is tool for attaining something else or an end in itself?

What are all the skill sets we want out of education?

Most importantly what is the trade off?

It need not necessarily be the constant obsession with trade off for our time and money spend to be compensated with more money without greater happiness, peace and better understanding.

Education is not merely confined to making or earning money, skills in communication and calculation.

Whether any external coaching can improve intelligent perception beyond knowledge acquisition?

Whether anything can improve our understanding or our thinking or more interestingly go beyond the realms of thoughts?

Whether any specific method can endow us with some ability to grasp the pulse of every subject or inject clarity of understanding?

Normally, the best education starts with curiosity, meanders through imitation- as a natural instinct for short cut- as a child learns to speak the language and words spoken by its parents then expands through exploration, experimentation, empirical verification, rational justification and so on.

I have read a lot on the subject of education to get confused enough and I have written enough to pass on the confusion.

But when I encounter people, some of the so-called highly educated groping in the dark clueless in many areas of life or manifesting obvious idiocy then I am forced to look into the meaning, purpose and utility of the whole gamut of education.

Most of us when we talk of education, in general, not specific education for a intended outcome or purpose, are still swimming in a sea of vagueness and club a wide range of things under one single generic term ‘education’ including in it everything from basic literacy, ability to communicate, better verbal articulation of already available information or interpretation of existing data to making in depth study in the mechanism of the subject of study.

There is nothing wrong in this but we need to merely and humbly accept the fact that we do not have enough clarity whenever we use the word education.

Like everything else in life education too involves a constant process of adjustment and learning.

If we know exactly where we're going, exactly how to get there, and exactly what we'll see along the way, we won't learn anything”. M.S.Peck

Whenever we undertake or undergo any education the following aspects are embedded in our subconscious mind and they leave their imprint.
 “All of us have our own inner fears, beliefs, opinions. These inner assumptions rule and govern our lives. A suggestion has no power in and of itself. Its power arises from the fact that you accept it mentally.”― Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

“We must realize that the subconscious mind is the law of action and always expresses what the conscious mind has impressed on it. What we regularly entertain in our mind creates a conception of self. What we conceive ourselves to be, we become.”- Grace Speare.

In addition we are also subjected to the influences and impacts externally of a whole array of thoughts, ideas and ideologies of various hues and colors.

None of these can be defied or denied for any reason.

It would be a mistake if we conclude knowledge and understanding only in certain specific areas or domains of life is enough because life itself is too intricate, interconnected, inter- related and interdependent on various factors each having its own varied dimensions  and variety of dynamics both inner dynamics as well as interactive dynamics.

However, we cannot go on and on, debating and discussing the multiple meanings and complexities of education.

We need to start somewhere  for the benefit of maximum number of human beings as individuals as well as social entities and the whole natural environment we need to evolve some forms of education systems with lofty, practically useful, easily executable ideals and goals, all on the whole creating a synergy that will be of great value in any situation rather than getting educated excluding many things which one  may be required to come across in life later on and get stranded clueless and forced to depend on everyone else.

“In the end nothing less than the whole of everything can be the truth of anything at all”- William James

If possible as  Thomas Huxley  says, "Try to learn something about everything and everything about something."

In way we must be humble enough to acknowledge these pearls of wisdom that learning may broadly impart to us:-

1."All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

2. “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” -Sir Isaac Newton 

3. Albert Einstein said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer."

And ultimately from whatever  pearls of wisdom we manage to learn we need to pass on conducive terrain with the wisdom that we have gained for posterity  through many aspects of social engineering of which education is of paramount importance











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