Once a student asked me, “What is the use of all these subjects that we are taught?
What is the use of education?” Before I could answer her questions, she put forward
one more question, “What is education?” I knew that an off-the-cuff answer would
not satisfy her curiosity. I told her to wait till I was able to organize my thoughts.
I began to think long and hard: what is Education?
Well, there is a plethora of definitions of education. For some it comprises the
process of instruction and training, while for others it refers to the art and science
of providing instruction and training. There are yet others who emphasize the result
of the instruction and training. Let us consider what a few great thinkers say about
education. According to George Savile, (1633-1695), an English statesman and author,
education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught. Will
Durant (1885-1981), a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher, says,
“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” Some great thinkers
even sneer at the process of formal Education. For instance, Bertrand A. Russell
(1872-1970), an English philosopher, mathematician, and writer, calls education
“one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.” And one of
my friends reports the interview in a book of a rural individual in England in which
the village worthy says, “We all waited eagerly to get out of school so that we
might begin our education”! Whole plays have been written, even in modern times,
on the subject. For instance, a fascinating play by Lorraine Hansberry, a Black
American dramatist of the late middle twentieth century, wrote a play titled “What
Use Are Flowers?” that examines the entire process of human cultural transmission
including education.
Actually, the word education has come from the Latin root ‘educo’, which means to
bring something out from latency and develop. In English the verbs ‘educe’ and ‘educate’
both derive from the same Latin root. If you look at the dictionary meaning of the
root ‘educo’ closely, you will notice that it presupposes latent knowledge in the
child since birth, that a child is born into this world with some ‘in built’ knowledge.
A similar message is conveyed in the oft-quoted statement of Swami Vivekananda,
although it concerns a somewhat different entity, “Every soul is potentially perfect.”
Noam Chomsky, one of the most influential linguists, has succeeded in convincing
the world that every child has genetically ‘in built’ capacity to acquire language.
It helps him acquire any language to which he is exposed. Chomsky even went to the
extent of saying that without this ‘hidden knowledge’, it would not be possible
for a child to learn its mother tongue in an amazingly short period of time of about
two to three years.
Now, if we keep in mind either ‘innate knowledge’ or ‘innate capacity’, what would
have to be the definition of education? Well, in an ideal situation, it would mean
to create an environment conducive to arousing and developing latent abilities of
children. In utter contrast, present day education in India emphasises rote learning,
which means cramming or learning by heart. It does not promote development. On the
contrary, by and large it suppresses development.
What can one expect, then, from education? To my mind, a good education should equip
a person for life, allow him to ‘develop’ until he becomes independent. To arouse
one’s curiosity and then teach one how to satisfy it should be the essence of education.
Further, in this jet and net age everyone suffers from stress. Education ought to
teach one how to overcome this problem and be contented. Besides, the world has
good and evil forces working together at all times. True education also ought to
enable one to sift the good from the bad, for man is a social creature and cannot
function in society without that ability.
Finally, as many have told us pointedly—such as Charles Dickens in his famous novel
Hard Times—that education is not like filling a container but lighting a fire. The
goal of education should be to make one realise what one knows and what one does
not, to show how to find out what one needs to know, and to generate a lifelong
desire to know more and better.