It has now been officially eighteen years since my formal education began. Going back from now, currently in my final year of engineering, to those fun and frolic filled playschool days : eighteen long years.To think of it I had just my first two years tucked away in the comfort of home. At the age of three, one fine morning I was sent off to this strange and unknown place known as 'school' . Man, I cried. Wailed my heart out to be precise. My parents were abandoning me, or so it felt like. How tragic it was, really.
Okay, now fast forwarding the sentimental aspects of schooling. Let's get into the technical part. Just why do we need 'schooling'? I am sure all of us would have pondered over this question at some point of the other, especially during the dejection associated with exams. We appreciate Pink Floyd for their song 'Another Brick in the Wall', whole- heartedly empathising with the line 'We don't need no education!!'. But maybe, the double negative there does imply that we actually do need education. Without education, we would have been very different from out current selves. We might not really have been ill mannered blokes, without knowing a thing, as we imagine sometimes. Because education is not just confined to the compound walls of a school or college. Education occurs at every step of our lives, whether we realise it or not. Any dictionary will tell you that education refers to transfer of knowledge and skills from one party to another. Every time you learn a new thing, however inconsequential, you are being educated.
However, formal education has its own share of credit. The whole process of going to school and college just consolidates education , making it formal and infusing discipline into us. We are not really born with an innate desire to learn something every day. It teaches us how to interact with people, we start with our friends and teachers. It is the first time we are pushed out of our comfort zone. We are taught that there are people out there who don't really care about our well being. We learn to defend ourselves and be strong. We learn about ourselves, discover our interests, and this is what makes us productive individuals later in life. We learn to respect others point of views, and more importantly, learn to respect ourselves.
Tolerance is fostered in a person when he/she learns that anyone is free to have their own opinion and views. When this happens on a large scale, education can be used as an effective weapon to sensitize the population, infusing values and morals into individuals. Education teaches us the power of forgiveness. Religion is a type of education which teaches us the importance of self control. This is why we often see an inverse relation between the education rate and crime rate in an area. We are taught the right kind of living, it cements our conscience. Isn't it strange, that all the points that I have mentioned above, do not, at any point make any adherence to the benefits of learning facts from prescribed textbook. Because, that is where formal education actually fails.
We will never ever be able to recollect the details of what we read from a textbook, if asked to do so many years from now. well , unless you have an 'eidectic' or photographic memory. Pouring over my 'Computer Communication' textbook before my exam, my mind was elsewhere, trying to make some sense out of me having to study that obscenely thick textbook. And in a moment of epiphany, I realised the real meaning of education. You may have already got this eureka moment, in which case please forgive my slightly delayed cognizance. I am, however delighted to proclaim my moment of enlightenment. And here comes my inference- Education is nothing but LEARNING TO LEARN. The facts that I was exposed to in that dreaded textbook were going to make it easier for me to learn something new I will be learning later in my career, as I know I will never be able to remember the exact contents ever again. In fact, a day has passed since that exam got over, and I already feel ignorant about the concepts of computer communication. However, hopefully a few concepts have been ensconced somewhere deep in my subconscious, and it is this which is going to make further learning easy. I am now better off than a beginner. What a relief.
We all need a cross between formal and informal education. We shouldn't let the former hinder the latter, and we should use the latter to enhance the former. We should expand our minds and be able to question everything. Curiosity is the ultimate precursor to a correct education. If we are not curious about something, we will never learn it. Learning how to question is education. Learning how to entertain other's views while maintaining your own is education. Having the interest to learn new things, anything under the sun is education. Speaking in economic terms, education is the ability to create 'human capital'. The phrase I have used 'Learning to learn', in the language of economics translates to increasing human capital - 'the ability to increase your knowledge, skill and value as you continue doing something, thus improving your remuneration over time'. Education gives you the ability to give back something to society. The fact is that educated people will be able to get a higher value of salary and get promoted in future years, because they have the ability to work on their existing knowledge base and improve their own human capital. Labourers end up doing the same activity time after time, not being able to create anything new in future years than what they were making before. Creativity is the beauty of a right education.
Education is adventure. I say this, because, if you want to know something, and you read up about it, you will be transported many miles to your destination, to the person, place or thing you want to know about. And the medium of education can vary. It can be a person, a book, a laptop, a television, an advertisement, practically anything which has the ability to provide knowledge. It just a person's choice what he/she wants to get exposed to and wants to learn. Personally speaking, I can safely conclude that in my four years bachelor degree course, I have learnt much more by reading about stuff I don't know about on my dear laptop and living independently in my city than all the collective knowledge I have gained attending classes. So, if you are one of the few people in the world who have access to the resources for an education, whether formal or informal, be blessed. And also do learn something from this wonderful revelation by Mark Twain 'I never let my schooling interfere with my education.' and an honest advice by Frank Zappa, 'If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want to get educated, go to the library. '
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