What is education? Is it different from schooling? In this piece Mark K Smith explores the meaning of education and suggests it is a process of inviting truth and possibility.
It can be defined as the wise, hopeful and respectful cultivation of learning undertaken in the belief that all should have the chance to share in life.
Introduction
When talking about education people often confuse it with schooling. Many think of places like schools or colleges when seeing or hearing the word. They might also look to particular jobs like teacher or tutor. The problem with this is that while looking to help people learn, the way a lot of schools and teachers operate is not necessarily something we can properly call education. They have chosen or fallen or been pushed into ‘schooling’ – trying to drill learning into people according to some plan often drawn up by others. Paulo Freire (1973) famously called this banking – making deposits of knowledge. Such ‘schooling’ too easily descends into treating learners like objects, things to be acted upon rather than people to be related to.Education, as we understand it here, is a process of inviting truth and possibility, of encouraging and giving time to discovery. It is, as John Dewey (1916) put it, a social process – ‘a process of living and not a preparation for future living’. In this view educators look to act with people rather on them. Their task is to educe (related to the Greek notion of educere), to bring out or develop potential. Such education is:
- Deliberate and hopeful. It is learning we set out to make happen in the belief that people can ‘be more’;
- Informed, respectful and wise. A process of inviting truth and possibility.
- Grounded in a desire that at all may flourish and share in life. It is a cooperative and inclusive activity that looks to help people to live their lives as well as they can.
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