Education is more than schooling. It is a process where people are invited to create new ideas, which starts in early ages by experiences when we begin to develop our intellectual faculties. In fact, education through experiences starts much earlier than learning in schools. For example, babies are learning language long before they speak (Dave, 2008). I would add that life experiences are one of the primary situations where children can learn and experience education elements. This learning process can also provide skills to problem-solving aspects considering the natural human condition to solve problems even when not consciously aware.
Commonly, education is related to traditional education, where students should attend specific classes in different levels at school. Mok (2004) wrote that “education through schooling is primarily to incorporate the younger generations into society.” (p. 31) Nonetheless, education does not only involve an educator and a learner but is also related to its purpose as well. Education is also connected to the power to cause changes in society and human mentality through a transformative process.
In this article, I describe education as a multifaceted process used to empower the learner ‘s intellectual faculty, social awareness, and human consciousness. To develop my argument, I examine four elements, which are part of a “good education.” First, I will explore the goals of education and its purpose in general. Then, the elements of “good education” will be described in detail to help to determine if education should be considered appropriate or not in diferent contexts. Third, I will look at the aspects that keep education on track by channeling the intellect towards a specific end. Finally, I will explore education as a transformative factor in the learner’s life and discuss how education is part of a life-changing process that starts in early ages and never stops.
Goals of education
The main goal of education is explaining the purpose of a specific subject within a context, and how that subject is connected to other elements to generate new ideas. Education generally occurs within a formal process such as those found at schools or universities, but it can also happen in different scenarios such as life experiences, jobs, or family environment. The goals of education can meet different needs. In Noddings's book (2012), she describes several approaches in terms of different goals of education. For example, Plato’s model of education is mentioned as “functionalist” in her book which is ideally designed to produce adults able to meet the needs of the state.
Regarding goals of education, Noddings also describes many others points of view from other philosophers. For example, Aristotle believes that people should be educated or trained in their appropriate place in life; then Rousseau believes children are naturally good, and they should be raised and educated with the least possible restraint. Rousseau also recommends very different types of education for boys and girls. For John Dewey, education is synonymous with growth, and growth leads to further growth.
Although there are studies about educational processes that focus on education being disseminated with freedom in terms of avoiding any restrictions in the process of developing and learning, these processes should assume role models and goals as well as adopt good practices to boost the experience of learning and create better learners.
Elements of a “good education”
A “good education” means making sure that the best practices are being used to transmit, share, and build new knowledge. In the educational context, transmitting knowledge is the process where information is thoughtfully captured by the learner. Sharing knowledge is the capacity to replicate that information while maintaining the original information independently of the method used to share it. And building new knowledge is the capacity to connect new information with internal ideas to create something new. Considering this perspective, teachers may ask themselves a few questions: (1) How can I guarantee that I am following best practices when I teach? (2) How do I know if students are understanding and capturing what I am trying to teach? and (3) How can I assess what students understood?
There are no right answers to such questions, but there are methods that can be used to determine answers in different contexts. It is essential to create a relationship between professors and students as part of good practices, where professors will be able to understand who students are and then shape their methods appropriately to enhance students’ experiences in the classroom. Thoughtfully inspired by Dewey’s theory related to experience and education, Noddings (2012) also illustrates the importance of establishing a rooted relationship with students’ prior experiences.
“Teachers must know something of their students’ prior experience and design new learning experiences that grow out of it, but they must also observe their student’s present experience and plan future experiences designed to move students toward a more sophisticated grasp of the subject.” p. 31
This method can be transposed to schools and universities through practices in laboratories, hands-on activities or any other activities to help students understand real world applications of what they learn in the classroom. Indeed, there are situations where real experience is the only way to teach and activate consciousness regarding one subject. For example, children learning mathematical concepts through objects manipulation can assimilate better its concepts rather than just using numbers.
Experimentation is also a good method to avoid adverse effects in the problem-solving process. Biesta (2007) argued that “one way to find an adequate response to any problem is through trial and error. Sometimes this will be successful; sometimes it will not. It means that if those attempts do not solve the problem, we may not be able to solve the problem at all” (p. 15). In this situation, although professors might agree that bad experiences are also part of the learning process, failure prevention makes the problem-solving process more intelligent than just trial and error.
But experimentation itself cannot be used as a universal solution to empower the educational experience. Knowledge should be built over cognitive and practical models that represent different perspectives to generate new hypotheses and information. From this point of view, knowledge should be thoughtfully based on theory. Caputi, Foster, and Viney (2006) explore model basics through examples of what is important when considering models and knowledge. They believe that models need to be clearly and concisely described.
“A model that is presented in a manner that is hard to understand is not going to attract practitioners; a model should be internally consistent. A model that is based on concepts and assumptions that are in conflict is not going to help practitioners; models also need to be parsimonious or frugal.” p. 4
On the other hand, this process of teaching based on models faces some epistemological concerns about the foundations of knowledge and the materials used by teachers. Noddings emphasizes these questions regarding the relationship between teachers and the material employed in the classroom. By that, Noddings tries to establish a connection between teaching methods and models.
“Essentially, teachers need to make decisions about the status of content they teach: is it true? Second, teachers need to evaluate the knowledge that comes to them from educational research. Third, teachers must decide whether the knowledge long reserved for a few students should or can be made accessible to all.” p. 123
Even with these considerations around educational elements, I consider that education can use both experimental methods and foundations of knowledge when addressed towards specific purposes. These purposes concern to social, moral, environmental, human, or technical aspects as part of the multifaceted process related to “good education”.
Channeling education towards specific purposes
A good education is also equipping students to adapt their knowledge to changes. It is important establish grounded theory in order to guarantee that new information can be molded and adapted to different situations. “Thought is always on the move.” (Jackson, 2012) (p. 23) Even when we are not studying a subject, we are learning through experiences, talks, or just capturing information through sensorial inputs such as eyes, ear, tastes, and so on. Sensorial experiences are also part of the learning process, and it can be connected to education since we create new ideas and concepts from these sensorial inputs.Keeping education on track can guarantee that those extra experiences will not intervene in the educational process and its purpose. By that, Jackson (2012) argued that “the movement of thought is not always as we or others would like it to be. And one of the main tasks of education is channeling thought’s movement – retaining its focus, keeping it on the right track” (p. 23).
In terms of purposes in education, it requires an agreement between social scientist to qualify what is a good knowledge purpose or not in different scenarios. Thought is always on the move as well as the knowledge is always changing. Knowledge is a consequence of education and this is why it should be considered within the context of what is education. Forsythe (2001) illustrated the challenge to find what is knowledge itself in a scenario where different experts are using it for different applications. Consequently, the meaning of knowledge changes according to different point of views. This problem argued by Forsythe to define knowledge as well as the challenge to channeling education towards a specific purpose are connected because education is also promoting the knowledge development. Find a common sense of what is the knowledge purpose can help to equip students with elements from a good education.
Education as a transformative element
The expression “transformative” should not be connected to external elements only. Educational processes need to bring out what people already have inside and merging with new knowledge. Then, we have a situation where education can highlight internal elements such as cultural aspects and moral ideologies to make connections with new knowledge. This will result in a life-changing process that is not related to intellectual elements only.
Education should incorporate new ideas every time and avoid becoming a static method based on repetition. Educating a person should be a dynamic process that targets not only intellectual faculties, but stimulates and influences cultural, social, and moral aspects. The educational process should be molding all these human elements together to create better individuals through new life experiences or even reshape previous concepts.
Incorporating the notions of morality, convention and personal issues into the existing academic curriculum is discussed by philosophers and it is treated as a challenge. Nucci (2001) describes a curricular approach to stimulate the development of student’s moral conceptions of fairness, human welfare, and to develop their notions of societal convention and social organization so that they may participate as constructive citizens and moral beings. He observed that education could have a transformative impact on students regarding human perspective. I draw attention to these elements because education has the power to induce changes in morality and natural conventions that one person creates during their life.And these elements are combined with intellectual faculties in order to create a set of characteristics that when changed can promote a transformative process.
Conclusion
I described education as a multifaceted model used to empower the learners’ attributes regarding intellectual faculty, social awareness, and human consciousness. I have argued that education starts in early ages and it is a process which never stops since we need to adapt ourselves to different contexts. I draw attention to elements that are also important enhance the learner’s experience. Experience is fundamental in this process since it is how we start to acquire new knowledge and is sometimes the best way to transmit or understand new information. Besides experiential methods, education should be founded on models to guarantee that students can generate new knowledge, and connect it to different contexts at the same time. This process to learn, capture and connect knowledge with other elements helps to develop innate skills (such as cultural aspects and moral ideologies) and associate it with environmental elements.
References
Biesta, G. (2007). Why “What Works” Won’t Work: Evidence-Based Practice and the Democratic Deficit in Educational Research. Educational Theory, 57(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5446.2006.00241.x
Caputi, P., Foster, H., Viney, L. L., & Wiley InterScience. (2006). Personal construct psychology new ideas. Chichester [England] ; Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved from http://login.ezproxy.lib.purdue.edu/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470713044
Dave, R. (2008). Intellectual Development Connecting Science and Practice in Early Childhood Settings. New York: Redleaf Press. Retrieved from http://Purdue.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=1486539
Forsythe, D. (2001). Studying Those who Study Us: An Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence. Stanford University Press.
Jackson, P. W. (2012). What is education? Chicago ; London: University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from http://www.Purdue.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=783333
Mok, K. (Ed.). (2004). Centralization and decentralization: educational reforms and changing governance in Chinese societies. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre [u.a.].
Noddings, N. (2012). Philosophy of education (3rd ed. .). Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Retrieved from http://login.ezproxy.lib.purdue.edu/login?url=http://site.ebrary.com/lib/purdue/Doc?id=10495159
Nucci, L. (2001). Education in the moral domain. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://login.ezproxy.lib.purdue.edu/login?url=http://site.ebrary.com/lib/purdue/Doc?id=5006350
