Learning as We Go #2
Learning and education. As kids and teens we either love it or hate with very little middle ground. However, no matter how we feel, education is equally important. Aside from our feelings about school, education and learning is something that takes a long time to understand.
Virtually no one in high school or below knows why they are learning. The whole system is a mystery. We think we know why, and often rebel against it. Even if we accept our indentured state we still don’t know much of the why. We know we are supposed to learn, be indoctrinated, and made productive. However, this has more to do with training and little to do with education.
College is even worse. We go in with goals (hopefully) and learn more. We are trained for our future lives and careers. But the word training is primary there as well. We still don’t know much about education. Some professors will even tell us directly about education. The enrichment of the mind. The creation of free thinkers able to abstractly adapt themselves to any problem. This sounds like a great idea! Even when it is explained to us, the vast majority will have learned nothing about education.
It is life that reveals education to us. One day you walk down the street and see a commonplace event. It can be any normal event. But suddenly you are not just seeing the event, you see the parts of the event, the actors, and results with a new clarity. This change happens with no effort, but suddenly you don’t just see common or random occurrences. What you begin to see are processes. Everything you gained from education matures. Whatever discipline you delved into in all these years of learning and training begins to no longer be abstract but starts to mesh with your perceptions.
Education has not trained you for a job, it has shaped the way you think.
You can be told this everyday of your sequestered educational life, but it takes a great deal more time to see it. You finally learn about learning.
