What Is Education?

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   threekeysposted 8 years ago

   What Is Education?
   
   Is education for your career?. Or is education from living your life? What did education mean to you 10 Years ago? What does education mean to you now?
   
   

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   bradmasterOCcalposted 8 years ago

   Education needs a context to answer the question you ask.
   There is formal education that from K-12 you are forced to do. There is informal education, which is basically how you learn everything else.
   
   Academics is associated with formal learning. It can be useful or not useful depending on what you can do with it. For me education was a passage needed to get a better job. But as it turned out, I got the job that I wanted without really having graduated from high school, and college. It is only that many businesses want specific degrees to be included in the pool of applicants that they select one or a few people to join their company.
   
   If we had the skill set they need, the experience from actually working the job would give us the skill to do the job. And from company to company even in the same industry, the skills are different in varying degrees.
   
   So in my opinion, companies would do better to get involved in the formal education so that they create the people that they need to do their job.
   
   Instead for centuries, formal education is basically academic, and that is only useful if you want to teach. This is the     21st century, and education needs to change to fit the time and the technology.
   
   delete my comment if I didn't answer your question.

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      threekeysposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Solid and real.
      That's great you got the job that you desired and that desired you-a great fit To me that says hard work and luck met up for you.
      It was recently said that in about 4 years, 5 million jobs will be lost. Therefore 1/2 our popln jobless

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      bradmasterOCcalposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I doubt that I could do it today, as many opportunities have gone away.
      And as you mention 5 million less jobs for the US during the next four years. And the US population is more than doubled when I started.

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      Tusitala Tomposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      There are the Technical colleges that cater to specific skils.  However, they cannot cover all contingencies.   Companies would need to run their own tertiary courses in the cases you mentioned.

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      bradmasterOCcalposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Tom
      I agree, or maybe they could contribute some core courses or electives that the schools might use as a standard.

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   threekeysposted 8 years ago

   I purposely left the question open ended to enable potentially more than a linear response. Why would I want delete your response Brad?
   I agree about now. With uncertainity about these "new jobs to be" the system needs to enable us to be a better fit. Yet I wouldnt want the educational system to eliminate the soul feeding subjects either. Cheers for a comprehensive response Brad.

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      bradmasterOCcalposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      ThreeKeys
      While you categorized my comment as comprehensive some authors think I don't answer their question, and I like to give any author the choice. Thanks
      I did graduate with degrees from two colleges, so I based my answer on my experience.

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      threekeysposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Everyone can see another angle or perspective which could make another feel they are not on the same page when it's more like one could be at the begining of the paragrapgh while another is towards the end of the paragraph. Do you know what I mean?

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   Tusitala Tomposted 8 years ago

   After the fundamentals of the THREE 'R's, - Reading, Writing and 'rithmatic, we initially set ourselves up to so that we can 'establish' ourselves in some sort of life work - a trade or profession.  This is where a lot of people stop- or used to stop.   Now, the changing times won't let us; not if we want to keep on earning a living. 
   
   For me, at eighty, I advocate and involve myself in 'life-long learning.'  As a fellow who left school at fourteen, had I not developed a love of reading - which led to a love of creative writing and study - I doubt I would have ever had the chance to hold down some of the jobs I've done over the years.
   
   Of course, I was fortunate indeed to leave 'Old England' where a 'class system' would have quite likely prevented me from doing much beyond unskilled work or, at best, a trade.  I moved to Australia.   Here, it was common place fifty years ago for people to rise from humble beginnings to become millionaires, even billionaires (not that I did)
   
   But to get back to life-long learning.   It has allowed me to write books, short stories, poems, even film scripts; live and work in exotic locations and even given me a chance to serve a year in the Antarctic.   It has allowed me to deliver speeches and workshops to great audiences.   It has allowed me to pursue my passions.
   
   Had I stopped studying at fourteen I hate to think where I would be now.  Certainly my life wouldn't have been as interesting and adventurous as it has been.  And I continue to study, albeit at home.
   
   Education is Life Itself?   A bold statement.  But that depends entirely on what John Dewey meant by 'Education.'

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      threekeysposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Your life sounds full and rich Tom. Your generation showed fantastic flexibility and initiative. "Schooling" can  make the Man but life's teachings can be the real heart and soul education.Unfortunately with cissy it can be in dire situations.

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   Cissy1946posted 8 years ago

   Education is what you get when events in your daily life go awry and you learn something from it. Of course there's also school but in my opinion that was one of my mistakes and since education is, in part,  learning from a mistake I guess I actually learned something in school. My teachers would be proud.

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      threekeysposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I bet they would be proud of you! I know you write funny, and cute ( filled with life tips/lessons too) stories through your pet cats.

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   wingedcentaurposted 8 years ago

   Hi ThreeKeys! How's it going?
   
   The very best definition of education I have ever heard goes something like this: A good (liberal arts) education is that which gives insight into what it is to be someone other than yourself.
   
   Through education, in the fullest sense of the world, one gains empathy (as opposed to and hopefully in addition to sentimental "sympathy"). There is a difference, to my way of thinking, between education and training.
   
   What about things like physics, mathematics, and computer science?
   
   Well, if you get a PhD. in physics, and only learn how to make an atomic bomb; and you never even learn (or care to learn) about Hiroshima and Nagasaki (WWII), and you never grasp the human and potential planetary cost of such weapons --- then what good are you? You are trained but not educated.
   
   Say, remember when we heard about M.I.T graduates in mathematics and the sciences, who went to work creating derivatives? Remember that?
   
   What do you think about that? What I would say was that they, at least temporarily, betrayed their education. They deviated from the path of investigating the mysteries of the universe, for the purpose of expanding human knowledge and fulfillment and... well.... there's no kind way to say this --- in many cases, aided and abetted fraud.
   
   I hope they have found their way back to the true path.
   
   As for the rest of your question: I am a classic learning-for-the-joy-of-learning guy. Education is for my life, not my career.
   
   What did education mean to me 10 years ago? Well, I've always been a library geek; nothing has changed.
   
   What does education mean to me now? The same. As I said, nothing has changed.
   
   Take it easy, ThreeKeys!
   
   W.T.

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      threekeysposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Beautifully multi-angled.

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