Meaning of Education Essay Example for Free

Meaning of Education EssayRecently, a university professor wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper. He com custodyted that people shouldnt put too much freight on the recently released trends in SRA scores of the states high inform assimilators. The professor went on to describe around of the unanswered questions ab stunned the nature and value of assessment. He menti unrivalledd that one of the problems with assessment was the ongoing disagreement on the very mathematical function of teaching. A few days later, a scathing response was printed from a corporation member who questioned whether the University really wanted someone on their staff who didnt charge know the purpose of direction.Clearly, this someone assumed that his definition of education was sh atomic number 18d by all. What is the meaning of education? Webster defines education as the transit of educating or teaching (now thats really useful, isnt it? ) Educate is merely defined as to deve lop the knowledge, skill, or reference book of Thus, from these definitions, we might assume that the purpose of education is to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of students. Unfortunately, this definition offers little unless we further define words such as develop, knowledge, and character. What is meant by knowledge?Is it a body of information that exists come in thereapart from the human thought motiones that developed it? If we look at the standards and benchmarks that have been developed by many statesor at E. D. Hirschs list of information needed for Cultural Literacy (1), we might assume this to be the definition of knowledge. However, there is considerable research aceing others to believe that knowledge arises in the mind of an psyche when that person interacts with an idea or experience. This is hardly a new argument. In ancient Greece, Socrates argued that education was active drawing out what was already within the student.(As many of you know, the word education comes from the Latin e-ducere meaning to lead out. ) At the same time, the Sophists, a group of itinerant teachers, promised to give students the necessary knowledge and skills to gain positions with the city-state. on that point is a dangerous tendency to assume that when people use the same words, they perceive a part in the same way. This is rarely the case. Once one gets beyond a dictionary definitiona meaning that is often of little practical valuethe meaning we deputize to a word is a belief, not an absolute fact. Here are a couple of examples.The central task of education is to establish a will and facility for learning it should produce not learned but learning people. The genuinely human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together. Eric Hoffer No one has yet realized the wealthiness of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unloc k that treasure. Emma Goldman The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his tone-by growing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality.The training he needs is theoretical, i. e. , conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past-and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort. Ayn Rand The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to thinkrather to mitigate our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men. Bill Beattie The one real object of education is to leave a man in the condition of continually intercommunicate questions. Bishop Creighton The central job of schools is to maximize the capacity of each student. Carol Ann Tomlinson These quotations demonstrate the diversity of beliefs about the purpose of education. How would yo u complete the statement, The purpose of education is ? If you ask quintuplet of your fellow teachers to complete that sentence, it is likely that youll have five dissimilar statements. Some will place the focus on knowledge, some on the teacher, and others on the student. thus far peoples beliefs in the purpose of education lie at the heart of their teaching behaviors.Despite what the letter generator might have wished, there is no definition of education that is agreed upon by all, or even most, educators. The meanings they attach to the word are complex beliefs arising from their own values and experiences. To the extent that those beliefs differ, the experience of students in todays classrooms after part never be the same. Worse, many educators have never been asked to state their beliefsor even to reflect on what they believe. At the very least, teachers owe it to their students to bring their definitions into consciousness and examine them for validity. Purposes and Funct ions.To make matters more complicated, theorists have do a distinction betwixt the purpose of education and the functions of education. (2) A purpose is the funda psychological goal of the processan end to be achieved. Functions are other outcomes that may top as a natural leave of the process byproducts or consequences of schooling. For example, some teachers believe that the transmission of knowledge is the primary purpose of education, while the ecstasy of knowledge from school to the real world is something that happens naturally as a consequence of possessing that knowledgea function of education.Because a purpose is an expressed goal, more effort is put into attaining it. Functions are assumed to occur without directed effort. For this reason its valuable to figure out which outcomes you consider a organic purpose of education. Which of the by-line do you actually include in your planning? Acquisition of information about the past and baffle includes traditional discip lines such as literature, history, science, mathematics Formation of healthy social and/or formal relationships among and between students, teachers, others Capacity/ability to evaluate information and to predict future outcomes (decision-making)Capacity/ability to seek out alternative solutions and evaluate them (problem solving) Development of mental and physical skills motor, thinking, communication, social, aesthetic Knowledge of moral practices and ethical standards refreshing by society/culture Capacity/ability to recognize and evaluate different points of view watch giving and receiving recognition as human beings Indoctrination into the culture Capacity/ability to live a fulfilling life Capacity/ability to earn a living career education Sense of well-being mental and physical health.Capacity/ability to be a good citizen Capacity/ability to think creatively Cultural appreciation art, music, humanities Understanding of human relations and motivations Acquisition/clarificatio n of values cogitate to the physical environment Acquisition/clarification of personal values Self-realization/self-reflection awareness of ones abilities and goals Self-esteem/self-efficacy As Tom Peters reminds us, What gets measured, gets done. Regardless of the high sounding rhetoric about the development of the entirety child, it is the content of assessments that largely drives education.How is the capacity/ability to think creatively assessed in todays schools? To what extent is the typical student recognized and given respect? How often are students given the opportunity to recognize and evaluate different points of view when multiple choice tests require a single correct answer? Teachers who hold a more humanistic view of the purpose of education often experience stress because the meaning they assign to education differs greatly from the meaning assigned by society or their institution.It is clear in perceive to the language of education that its primary focus is on kn owledge and teaching rather than on the learner. Students are expected to conform to schools rather than schools serving the needs of students. Stopping to identify and agree upon a fundamental purpose or purposes of education is rare. One sees nebulous statements in school mission statements, but they are often of the Mom, baseball, and apple pie variety that offer little substance on which to build a school culture. Creating meaningful and lasting change in education is unlikely without revisiting this basic definition.At the very least, educators moldiness be challenged to identify and reexamine their beliefs in the light of present knowledge. It is time for the focus of education to switching from whats out therethe curriculum, assessments, classroom arrangement, books, computersto the fundamental assumptions about and definitions of education held by educators and policymakers. NASA did not send men to the moon by building on the chassis of a model T. In the same way, educatio n cannot hope to move beyond its present state on the chassis of 18th century education.