Man and Education

Much learning does not teach understanding. HERACLITUS (500 BC.). Fragments, tr. Philip Wheelwright.

Why do we establish schools and pay for them? Is the fundamental purpose of education the training of obedient citizens of a totalitarian state, or is it the development of free men in a democracy? Shall the church or state dominate the school? What shall we teach in our schools?

Throughout man's history, the most significant of the evolutionary changes have been man's ability of man to educate himself. The ability of the human mind to record is a relatively recent phenomenon in human brain development. With the ability to store information, man became ready for education. Education of knowledge about things is a two-fold phenomenon. One is the tracking of the mind, i.e., mind accepts certain tracks of knowledge, many of which are of permanent nature, but like a piece of magnetic tape, it can be recorded over while leaving traces of the previous recording. Usually, however, you can by concentration reverse the process and move the most recently recorded strip in the background and move the older recording up on the top.

Wherever men lived together, they developed a system of education. Early men had a simple system whereby a child learned from his parents and other members of the family, tribe, clan, or larger groups: learning to fish and hunt, to prepare his food, to fight his enemies, and to take care of his simple and elementary needs. In short, learning to survive in the world. With time the growth of customs made such chronological learning inadequate and the older people of the community took upon the task of teaching traditions, customs and group lore. With increasing complexities, specialists of traditions developed who started teaching in specified places, the schools.

Often these places of teaching and learning were also the places where members of the group often gathered for religious purposes because traditions and customs were tied closely with religion. The learning of traditions and customs had religious sanction. Consequently, teachers began exercising great religious power and places of learning became places of worship. Even today, teachings at synagogues, churches and mosques around the world are common despite the acknowledged need to separate education from religion. (Note: The US doctrine of separation of church and state forbids teaching of religion in state supported institutions.)

The totalitarian systems demand that the education be directed to preparing obedient citizens at the risk of destroying the individuality of children. The system admits that a child must be permitted to grow according to his nature and to deviate from the group only if he is able to make a contribution to the group. However, society does have right to demand of the individual that he prepare himself to serve the best interests of the group in an individual capacity for which he can be best trained. Education is concerned with the individual in society and not with the individual isolated from the society. The school must consider individual interests, talents, and purposes as means of contributing to the good of the whole.

The democratic system purports to develop the skills of the individuals, giving them a free venue for the growth of mind. The society is allowed to adjust to these individuals because after all these are the individuals who make up the society. The paradigm of society molds after the interests of the individuals. Neither system offers advantages that are absolute.

What should we teach our children? Is there ideal curriculum? These questions are difficult to answer because of the dynamic nature of all societies. Perhaps the best curriculum is the one that continues to fulfill the needs since the beginning of man's need to educate himself-prepare him to help himself. However, in our effort to expedite the process of education, we seem to be losing out the understanding of human mind. In his book, Closing of the American Mind, Alan Bloom laments about the deteriorating standards of education which exclude the teaching of classics as a means of laying foundation of healthy and creative thoughts. How other men have reasoned the problems around them teaches us a great deal about the evolution of thinking process and allows us to reason and reflect. No system of education can be complete without laying a sound foundation of utilizing mental faculties. The teachings of cognitive and motor skills to perform certain tasks must take a more mundane level of importance.

The question if an educated man is a better man is only answered in terms of better than what? Actually, education does not make you any better person, it is the use of education to improve the lives of others that makes you respected. Many a great philosophers died without having their knowledge affect the lives of common man. These were great thinkers but not great men. Similarly, all those who can improve lives of others, whether educated or not, should be considered great men. The question arises why should a man try to improve lives of others. The answer simply is that this is what the Nature has been doing over eon of years in giving us the evolutionary traits. Proper application of these traits, also a part of acquired evolutionary trait, can speed up the process of making human race a perfect race. Can there be a nobler cause? Or perhaps can there be a better subservience to Providence's Grand Plan. After all education is the best survival tools endowed to man by Nature.