I originally wrote this for a public speaking competition, but thought it might like some exposure out here. Hope you enjoy it.
Mark Twain once
said that “I never let my schooling interfere with my education”, but how many
of us actually make a distinction between the two? Just recently, I learned
that the Spanish Armada attacked Britain in 1558. But how exactly does this
knowledge aid my powers of reasoning or judgment? How does this aid in my
mental preparation for my future life?
It doesn’t. As
long as schools school and not educate, as long as they focus on the
what and the how of things, there is a problem. Education requires us to ask
‘why’, and when the question is answered, it requires us to ask ‘in light of
this, what now?’ It involves the
development of human beings who will impact upon the lives of others. It
involves pondering, imagination, creativity. It is a process of exploring the
meaning and application of knowledge. It involves asking ‘what do we mean by
that? ‘How can this be?’, and ‘Can this be right?’
It involves
something that schools may never be able to provide.
What schools
provide is accumulated knowledge, and a degree or ATAR score. I don’t mean to
be disparaging – a degree certainly speaks of the hard work of its owner, and
can lead to the development of skilled people who will better our living
standards – but it is when we consider a degree an education that there is a
problem. The end of four years spent in high school (or in any other
educational institution, for that matter) is not the completion of an
education. It is simply a point of departure. It is foolish to suggest that we
can ever ‘have’ an education – the very nature of learning is that what we are
exposed to in schools is only the tip of an iceberg of knowledge we will never
be able to completely learn.
For us to
acquire a VCE certificate, we needn’t need to learn much. Even to acquire a
degree, we needn’t learn anything original. Instead, what we really learn in
high school or university is how to
navigate the system. We are taught how to conform. Upon completing our
exams, we will have proven to our educators that we have learned to think
exactly as they want us to. We will have written answers as they have wanted us
to. Our formal education requires uniformity, measurability, conformity and
submission. We will all have read essentially the same books, and will have
drawn essentially the same conclusions. How can wisdom and insight develop in a
system where knowledge is standardized? Without the gift of original thought,
how can we become a force of social change?
Does our formal schooling ensure that we are just another cog in the
wheel of society, promoting and living the thoughts and ideas of other people?
We must keep in
mind that everything we learn from school is information we learn from other
people. When we are children, we are told what things are, and what things are
not. We are shown a world where this is right, but where this isn’t. The reality that other people have inflicted upon us
may never be challenged. In the case of science, politics or humanities, our
textbooks dictate reality. However, the expanse of our reality, the limits of
who we can be, and what we can accomplish are not so clear cut. Interpretations
of information should be welcome, rather than marked down. Questioning and
challenging knowledge should be praised instead of languished. Many of the most
gifted individuals will not do well in school – shaming them through lower
grades is nothing more than a tool of conformity. It states that ‘you don’t
perform well in my system, therefore I’m punishing you’. Albert Einstein did not speak until he was
4-years-old and did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was
"sub-normal," and one of his teachers described him as "mentally
slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.". But today we
regard Einstein as one of the most enlightened men who ever lived. It was his
education, rather than his schooling that allowed him to succeed.
Stephen Fry said
during his time at university, the learning that he really did was done while
sitting with coffee in his rooms with friends talking about various topics such
as the cosmos, God, Marxism, history, psychology and honesty. Education isn’t
something we get from textbooks alone – we become educated through our
interactions and relationships with other people. More than information, we
need wisdom and discernment. More than standardized testing, we need
interactions with people. More than
knowing, we must understand.
No amount of
schooling will ever prevent a child from growing up to become another Hitler or
Stalin. Similarly, no amount of schooling will ever develop the Mother Theresas
of the world. Only education, that process that allows us to understand, to
contemplate, to think, will allow us to really function and move forward as a
society. The educated realize that we are common in our humanity but not our
ideas. Education allows us as individuals to negotiate, to compromise, to work
how the different people of the world will live together. It lets us know that
we shouldn’t force people into thinking in one way, into believing that one set
of ideas or values is right. It is
something that schooling fails to accomplish.
If we allow
ourselves to exist in a world of tin soldiers, where each individual is taught
to think in the same way, to learn the same things, to ‘study hard and get a
good job’ (a job, mind you, in which you work promoting the desires of another
person), then schooling may be the way to go.
But for the rest
of us, who long for a world of understanding and compassion, for progress and
liberty, for knowledge that leads to a deeper understanding of oneself and for
the bettering of the human race, then it is education
rather than schooling which we seek.
Talk to people
who are passionate about what they do. Criticize. Question. Ponder. Observe
things. Make mistakes. Judge what is right and what is wrong.
In the words of Margaret
Mead “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
We are not
cattle but men and women with minds to think and hearts to feel. Let us use the
power in our minds to strive towards a bettering of our education and
ultimately, to the bettering of all humanity.
