What Is Real Education

IN BRIEF: In this post we masticate about what the real meaning of EDUCATION is. We start by looking into the embryonic stages of education and how it has evolved to be, today.

History Of Education

Remember your history lessons about our primitive ancestors? You know when the early humans were hunter-gatherers, and slowly began to colonise parts of Africa. This was followed by migration towards other parts of the Supercontinent.

The moment humans started to settle, they had to perfect cultivating primitive farming, hunting, with the usage of hand made tools. All of this seems to be fascinating. I can almost picture David Attenborough following this herd of species with a BBC camera crew recording every movement through hundreds of years.

Improving farming, hunting, shelter, clothing techniques required a lot of attention to detail and physical prowess. Imagine how they would have gathered to share best practices and make separate groups. Some groups to make hand made tools, some to cultivate crops, and some to build, hunt, and protect the clan.

Dear reader, this is the first attempt at educating ourselves. The main aim of education was to inculcate life skills to survive.

What Is Education In The Present Time

Fast forward hundreds of thousands of years, and here we are. We have come a long way since then, haven’t we? Now, we have become this sophisticated diaspora belonging to a highly tested and proved way of leading lives. Though there are certain countries and communities which are in abject poverty, we have grown and evolved leaps and bounds to be where we are today.

The reason for misery, poverty, malnutrition has to be attributed to our selfish acts of putting boundaries around our territories and calling them OUR COUNTRIES. Australia doesn’t care about poverty in Uganda. Fiji Islands doesn’t batter an eye lid about terrorism in Pakistan. Until The United Nations is involved, none of the countries care to sniff at issues of other societies.

We have panoply of sophisticated Universities around the world, which are open to every deserved individual. Not only there, even at the rest of the educational institutions, children and adolescents are taught about more than primitive survival. We are being taught to dream big and become ideal citizens of the communities we occupy.

What Education Is Supposed To Be

The concept of education has evolved with us humans rapidly with a sole purpose of opening one’s heart and mind towards the niceties and oddities of life. All these are taught in various perspectives, such as History, where we learn how we came to be, what wars were fought, and what we learn from them all.

We learn about the elements of the Earth through Chemistry. Life on the planet, through various branches of Biology. We teach the complex behaviour of our place under the Sun through Mathematics and Physics. To top them all, we do have Sex Education too.

Compared to our primitive ancestors, we are enjoying the most sophisticated times of all. But, enough of masticating about how good we are, which we are. But, we also need to look at what education has done to us, in a negative aspect.

How Do We Inculcate Prejudicies

No matter if we learn, read, and regale the tales of great philosophers of the past. Our current day prejudices renders all learning useless within a nano second. What are these prejudices and how and where do we learn them you ask? Good question.

We get to learn them first at home, then at schools and universities. Don’t believe me? Here are some examples:

• Mother tells you not to play with certain kids
• Father says not to shake hands with Cobblers
• Only certain contingent of people are made to work as maids and helpers
• We look down upon people who struggle to talk properly, walk properly, etc
• Nepotism is rampant across working cultures
• Politicians capitalise on the race and caste division

Oh, this list can be endless. But, why isn’t everyone bothered about these things? One speculation is because, all these have become our tradition. Our way of living. We are all living fast paced lives. We have no time to retract and recollect our actions. That is why we hear people say “I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS/THAT…”

True education is a means to improve the self as well as the society as a whole. But, it looks like we need another hundreds of thousands of years to evolve into more mature beings. Because trust me, it is bound to happen. The human race is is bound to evolve, no one can stop this, this is just how nature works. We all will become better creatures, though a long time in the future, only if we do not start a big nuclear war. I say this with confidence because we have come out and been through and suppressed heinous prejudices over time. Such as:

• Burning people as Godly sacrifices
• Killing “witches” and “wizards” cause they perform “black magic”
• Slavery has been abolished (not completely, but still)
• Race riots are slowly dissipating
• Same sex relationships and marriages are being accepted
• Many more taboos have been discarded

How To Break The Barriers Of Factory Education

All the good aspects you just read in the previous paragraph happened due to quality, truthful education spreading awareness about social issues. This is why we are better than a 1,00,000 years ago.

In order to break the shackles of prejudices, we need to learn more (not study), travel more, read more, interact with people from across this planet. When we learn about various cultures, we tend to introspect our own. This is a good thing.

So, I implore you to save and make as much money as possible. Make some time for yourselves too and go around and observe why people behave the way they do. Read about cultures which are extinct, read about the musings of philosophers, read blogs, and watch TV shows which not only entertain you but also offer valuable perspectives of life. This is how we can accelerate bad things from happening. If you agree or disagree with my musings, please do comment below.