Pleased note this is a very rough draft. Changes to it WILL FOLLOW in the coming months or years. This subject could very easily fill a full-length book, or many books, depending on how heavily annotated it is.

On Education

Firstly, we must consider who ought to be most concerned by the process of education and its outcome. Education must be, first and foremost, the concern of the person being educated – our children or ourselves. Secondly it is important that …be our concern – as parents. Thirdly, it ought to be the concern of educational institutions – teachers and their administrators. Finally, it should be the concern of the state – the government..

Our children need to be foremost concerned about the robustness of their education. What they learn and how they learn it is a burden and honor, they must bear throughout their lives – long after their parents and teachers are dead and buried. From aboriginal bushmen to the most sophisticated, leading-edge geniuses in their fields among us, confidence it the objective truth of what we know and believe must be of the foremost consideration.

They will view this in different terms at various stages in their lives., but all must come to be focused on (1) the importance of learning, and (2) eventually how they came about their knowledge and the accuracy of it. A prescooler will think about this one way, but a college graduatge must think about it in other terms, primarily because the preschooler is concerned with negotiating a reality presented to them by newly functioning senses: what is up and what is down, for instance, which does not correspond to what falls on their (and our) retinas; what si required to stand on tow legs; how to guide a fork to ones mouth; etc.

There is so much to learn in life, in so many conceptual dimensions, that some can be learned by trial and error, while other things must employ logic and imagination to guide them. Not to mention teachers and mentors. Teachers introduce and enabble tools for learning, while mentors impart, primarily, inspiration for learning along with some tools as well.

Mentors are arguably the most important of all these people. It is wonderful when multiple roles can be combined into one, but the mentor more than any other induces a hunger for learning in the mentee. This can encourage learning of all sorts, through all stages of life, and conditions the student will encounter in life.

Rote learning has its place, as in instilling certain skills and knowledge that cannot otherwise be obtained … and yet must be obtained. For example, one cannot pursue higher math (or physics, or business, or cooking, etc) without acquiring the ability to perform arithmetic. And depending on what career – or academic – track, on intends to pursue, other types of rote learning will be helpful. In all cases a knowledge of the alphabet and reading is essential.

Beyond that, however, the type of education that will contribute most to one's life will be a desire for, if not hunger for, learning .. for teaching oneself.

Also, we as a society ought to be concerned with the education of the youth who will, ultimately, replace us. This means that the government ought to be involved. When and how are topics of ongoing debate, as is who to determine the standards that are used in doing this. Hopefully, I will have something to say on this in later revisions of this essay.

Secondly, we must be focused on the nature of education. What is it and how do we achieve it? Again the ability to learn cannot replace an inherent desire to learn. Education is the feeding of that determination to learn, motivated by the desire to learn, utilizing the ability to learn. At some point people are able to teach themselves, and indeed are expected to teach themselves, even while they are, at the same time, academic students.

Thirdly, we must be concerned with the quality of education. This is something that no institutional educatioal system can truly address, except insofar as it can seek the best teachers and mentors (ideally people embodying both traits), but for a student to self-embody this trait, they must learn and appreciate philosophy. This is true not just of academic studies, but also of even trade studies.

This is most evident in the study of ethics. Nothing one ever does is exempt from the responsibility of fairness and compassion. Even in the role of the student, one must understand and appreciate how important ethics is. This is even more important in the realm of the workplace, where, even if it is not important to an employer, it certainly will be to the customers who are being served. It emphasizes that humans are inherently interconnected and rely on one another, rather than being self-sufficient or isolated entities.

Meditation XVII

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

-- Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne.

But philosophy also helps as a tool, as in the studies of: epistemology (the study of knowledge), metaphysics (the study of reality), ethics (the study of moral value), logic (the study of right reasoning), and aesthetics (the study of art and beauty). These things must be, if not necessarily mastered in all respects, at least understood in their basics. They are like the arithmetic of the realm of knowledge.

Yes, to some degree, we have books and the internet which can help us with these things, but to reduce our argument to the absurd, when you are driving along and find yourself faced with the prospect of stopping or killing a child, you do not have time to read a reference on the subject of killing, you must have n internal foundation on which to act, be that the Bible (or Koran, or other scripture) or philosophical texts. You need to know what your stance is on that and why. The same is true of just about every other situation one faces in life. And while you cannot prepare for every situation you will face in life, many situations echo each other, and so can help chart a course.

Finally, we must always throughout each of our lives, continually reassess what the purpose, processes, content, and value of our education actually is, and has been, in our lives. This need not be a big deal, as in a major conference in our family and community. It should, however, be ab ongoing awareness that our ongoing education in in our own hands. As a result our future needs to be guided by our past.

How does one assess and reassess the purpose, processes, content, and value of one's own education? We need to always question the truth of it. Be it the veracity of history, math, science, social, cultural, or religious & spiritual teachings.

Was I handed a bunch of propaganda by those who taught me? … which is not to say they were bad people, or people with an agenda that they foisted on me. Often such people are themselves victims of the propaganda they perpetuate. They were trying to do right, but were not really critical or thorough in their own assessment of the truth. Sometimes it is necessary to provisionally accept something one is taught, but that provisionality assumes that it will be subject to reassessment at some point to determine its veracity.