Confusion over the root of Education.

Prometheous, a rather belated welcome to the forum and, particularly, to this thread. I hope that the torch that you appropriated from the gods will shed some light on our discussions before you have to go to your eternal punishment

Perhaps I may attempt to answer your point and, in doing so, help the others with the problem we are examining. What if educare and educere could be represented by two circles in a Venn diagram? The circles partially overlap and, where they do, BOTH educare and educere apply. However, there will still be areas outside the area of overlap where only one of them will apply. In most classrooms, both apply as the teacher gives information - educare - and encourages the students to expand on it by doing extension exercises - educere. At other times, the teacher may seek out a student's skill - educere - without giving information.

If we cannot produce some albeit imperfect definition of education we are in trouble, for it makes statements that we use all the time meaningless. Consider the following

He is boorish, he is not educated.

The education system of country X is in trouble.

You cannot get a good job unless you have had a good education.

These sentences are frequently heard and must have some kind of meaning unless we are going to accuse ourselves of speaking meaningless nonsense. The problem is that, if we cannot reach some kind of basic agreement about what the term means, we cannot use it. Wittgenstein pointed out that the limits of his language defined the limits of his world as he could not speak of anything that lay outside the range of his vocabulary and syntax.

I wish I could share Wannabe's optimism about somebody eventually seeing something if the blind lead the blind. I fear that the chances are so slim as to be negligible.

Belinda,

Yes, social skills can be learned at the same time as academic knowledge. A classroom is a social setting an, to be able to function well in such a setting one has to develop and deploy social skills. However, I don't think that social and academic skills are the same, though they should often be complementary. You may need certain academic skills to be a good conversationalist, but you need the right social skills as well - skills like being a good listener, being tolerant of other people who have a different point of view from your own, being patient with those who are less adept at the activity than you are. . .

Then can social knowledge or social skills be learned at the same time as academic knowledge ? Are social skills for the same purpose as academic skills , and what do you think the purpose is?

Yes, of course. Yes, well rounded education.

I wish I could share [wanabe's] optimism about somebody eventually seeing something if the blind lead the blind. I fear that the chances are so slim as to be negligible.

If you really believe it's the blind leading the blind, and that never gets anyone anywhere, or if it does it's negligible then you wouldn't be posting here, no one would be. Perhaps we are blind and through trial and error or by some scientific method we find ways of seeing. The fallacy of pessimism is in its persistence.

Wanabe wrote:

Belinda wrote:

Then can social knowledge or social skills be learned at the same time as academic knowledge ? Are social skills for the same purpose as academic skills , and what do you think the purpose is

? Yes, of course. Yes, well rounded education.

Yes, well rounded education. But what is well rounded education for?

Whatever we want. Ideally to promote prosperity for all life.

Wannabe,

What do you understand by "prosperity"?

Some poeple would define it in materialist terms, but would you agree that this makes the human being a one-dimensional creation?

What about the non-material - "spiritual" - aspect? (Note, by "spiritual" I am not implying just religion - or even religion. There are many spiritual dimensions to our existence.)

I just liked the alliteration.

What I mean by prosperity is: being able to live life to the fullest, and helping all others to do so. Not limited to material terms at all.

The spirit does not need to be taught it is given.

I agree that the spirit cannot be taugght, Indeed, I am not sure what would constitute education of the spirit.

However, experience has convinced me that many people are not in touch with their spiritual dimension. Surely, it is this getting in touch with the spiritual side of ourselves that is the justification for education in the arts? Social activities also make us (more) aware of the spirits and spiritual needs of others.

I agree that the spirit cannot be taught, Indeed, I am not sure what would constitute education of the spirit.

However, experience has convinced me that many people are not in touch with their spiritual dimension.

There is no need to teach the spirit if we do not teach against it. We do teach against it in practice though, that is why people have ignored their inherent spiritual dimension and are not in touch.

Surely, it is this getting in touch with the spiritual side of ourselves that is the justification for education in the arts? Social activities also make us (more) aware of the spirits and spiritual needs of others.

Not surly, that is but one possible aspect. The reason we have education in the arts is because artistic stimulation helps other parts of the mind grow. The reason we have social activities is for more immediate practice at applying our education to that point, obviously we learn from this too.

I agree with you about arts education. It is one of the reasons why I am so saddened by the decline in arts education in Britain and the falling standards in the arts in that country. I fear that it may be true of other countries also.

Science is important as an area of inquiry in its own right and as the basis for the economically important technologies that are based on it. But I fear that the balance in education (and, perhaps, in life in general?) has shifted too far to the sciences and the technologies - to the detriment of the arts. This can tend towards a dehumanising of the students.

So, Davaodave and Wanabe, do employers want people who are literate, numerate, can reason and have people skills, (or in other words spiritual skills? ) ? I quote from Davaodave 11thApril:

He is boorish, he is not educated.

How exactly does an arts education give students people skills? Or does ordinary civility and kindness come from reason as well as from sympathy?

Does an 'arts ' education include history as well as music?

So, Davaodave and Wanabe, do employers want people who are literate, numerate, can reason and have people skills, (or in other words spiritual skills? ) ?

Yes they do of course, when you are talking about a whole company. The gray area comes in when potential employees are better educated and qualified than their bosses. Certain members of a company don't want the competition. This is the exception not the rule, but tit is worth noting.

How exactly does an arts education give students people skills? Or does ordinary civility and kindness come from reason as well as from sympathy?

Depending on the art; it is easy to see how acting could yield people skills, however painting perhaps not so much. If people are highly well educated in a single mode of education they will begin to see a convergence, and find their own reasoning to be civil.

Does an 'arts ' education include history as well as music?

I would classify history as an art, it fits better their than science.

The answer for well rounded education is to mathematically analyze art. If we take the integrals and derivatives and linearity in the mona lisa for example, people can appreciate two subjects at once. If we study and create the paint in chemistry class we again be teaching two subjects at once... I could go on but I think you get the point.

We take the humanity out of all subjects by acting like they do not interact while we teach them.

Meaningful discussion of the nature and methods of education have been bedevilled by difficulty in agreeing on the root of the term. It comes from Latin, certainly, but does it come from "educare" or "educere"? The first means to fill up, as in filling up a glass with water, while the second has to do with leading or drawing out.

In the second chapter of his novel "Hard times", Charles Dickens introduces a character called Mr Gradgrind who runs a school. Gradgrind sees his pupils as "little pitchers" who need to be filled with facts. He calls on a boy called Bitzer to define a horse. This the boy does by means of a memorised definition of a series of facts about horses. He includes in his definition the word "graminivorous". a word the meaning of which it is highly unlikely that he was aware. He had learned facts and been filled up - "educare" - but, if he could not have understood the language in which his definition was couched, can we say that he had been educated?

More recently, those of us in education have realised that a major part of our task is to discover the talents of our students and the things in which they are interested. These can then be brought forth and developed and provide a sense of fulfillment for the student. Clearly, this reflects the idea of education as being derived from "educere".

Jacques Maritain, an eminent teacher of philosophy, wrote "You will not learn from me philosophy, but how to philosophise: not thoughts to repeat, but how to think." I have always used this as the basis for my work as a teacher. My function is not to provide my students with pre-digested facts that can be examined by means of a multiple-choice test. It is to provide them with the materials upon which to base their own thinking and further discovery according to their interests and talents - and the testing process has to provide them with opportunities to display that thinking.

I have just spent ten years teaching adults in China, My classes were very small, so it was possible to deal with individual differences quite easily but, especially in their primary schools, class sizes are very large. This results in a teaching method that is closer to the Victorian ideal of filling up the pupils with facts. If the teacher asks a question, the whole class choruses the answer. How does the teacher know if a particular pupil has given the correct answer or, indeed, had given any answer at all?

However, this fits with the traditional thinking of many Asian cultures. The emphasis is on the group and not the individual.. As a Japanese proverbs says "If a nail protrudes from the surface of the wood it will soon be knocked down again."

So, what can we say about education? Firstly, we can assert that it should be an enabling activity for the student. Secondly, however, we can say that it may not be so enabling in cultures where the individual is considered to be subservient to the masses.

In the West, most educators see the word as deriving from "educere", but in less developed cultures or those in which there is less emphasis on individual development, the practice of education still adheres to the idea of "educare".

I have read all the posts here and they were eye opening to me.Whatever is written here is about education in US.Unfortunate Indian education is some what better in value orientation otherwise no better than US.We have imported almost all features of Western education system.We are still continuing Macaulay's system and views.In schools we are running after Examination and not education.Here examination and score dominates education. There is a difference between education and training. In India it was believed that "knowledge is that which liberates us.Liberation here means liberation from whatever we don't want .To understand what should be the education, we have to understand and have to very clear about whom and why education ? That will decide what and how of education.If these questions are answered and agreed upon the young teachers and students can uplift the standard of human education.

My function is not to provide my students with pre-digested facts that can be examined by means of a multiple-choice test. It is to provide them with the materials upon which to base their own thinking and further discovery according to their interests and talents - and the testing process has to provide them with opportunities to display that thinking.

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I feel it would be better to show the difference in between accumulated thought and thinking. Merely repeating or carrying collected information can not be called as thinking. Thinking requires freedom of past events because events are tiny structures which blocks perceiving things or tasks as they are.To teach all this to students the teacher got to see what thinking is and should be in a position to discriminate between factuality and reality.

Kameshwar and Sekhar,

Welcome to this thread and thank you both for injecting a fresh insight into our discussion. I agree that we had got rather fixated on the USA, perhaps because Belinda and Wannabe come from there (though I have no hard evidence for this assertion!). The Indian perspective will make us all think slightly differently about our topic.

Everybody,

I had been thinking about where to take this thread next and had decided that we were ready to tackle a seductively simple question "What does it mean to be educated?" This involves many of the areas that we have already mentioned, but a complete answer will force us to look farther afield to give a clear meaning to the term.

Some may question the need for such an exploration, possibly citing St Augustine's famous reply when he was asked about the concept of Time. He said that when nobody asked him what Time was, he knew very well, but, when they asked him, he realised that he knew nothing. However, he and those around him still used the concept. They did not erase the word from their lexicon. We are in the same position with "education". It is a word in English and we cannot simply pretend that it does not exist. Therefore, we have to explore possible meanings and try to come to some conclusion as to how the word should be used.

I look forward to reading your views on what it means to be educated.

Good luck!

Davaodave,

In a holistic sense, to be educated means: to know everything possible there is to know about what one wants to do.