The Purpose of Education

[Resha Caner]

What would you say is the purpose of education?

 

[Davian]

What would you say is the purpose of education?

At its base, to pass along the skills and knowledge from the current generation to the next that will aid them in being competitive at the group and individual level for food, shelter, mates, etc. and survive to produce the next generation.

 

[Resha Caner]

At its base, to pass along the skills and knowledge from the current generation to the next that will aid them in being competitive at the group and individual level for food, shelter, mates, etc. and survive to produce the next generation.

Thanks for getting the conversation started. I highlighted the word "competitive" in order to ask a question. Should education involve socialization? That would be more an emphasis on cooperation rather than competition.

 

[Davian]

Thanks for getting the conversation started. I highlighted the word "competitive" in order to ask a question. Should education involve socialization? That would be more an emphasis on cooperation rather than competition.

Of course, but I assume we are talking of groups - or more technically correct, populations - in competition for shared resources. A social group that educates "better", raising its offspring to be more cooperative, may have a slight advantage over another group that does not. The predilection for education becomes an inherited trait.

 

[Murby]

What would you say is the purpose of education?

Independence.

 

[Mudinyeri]

What would you say is the purpose of education?

Can you be a bit more specific about what you mean by "education"? Are you speaking in very general terms about the macro concept of education, about education within the Christian community, about public school education, private school education ...?

 

[Resha Caner]

Independence.

Can you expound?

Can you be a bit more specific about what you mean by "education"? Are you speaking in very general terms about the macro concept of education, about education within the Christian community, about public school education, private school education ...?

The question was general. If you want to focus your reply in a specific area, feel free.

 

[Mudinyeri]

The question was general. If you want to focus your reply in a specific area, feel free.

I wanted to answer your question.

So ... speaking generally, the purpose of education is to transfer knowledge.

 

[Noxot]

sometimes it is for power and control

 

[Murby]

Can you expound?

We educate to be independent at all levels. We educate our children so the parents do not have to care for them all their lives.. We educate our young adults so they can contribute to our society so that our species will be independent.

That's the best I can do.. There's more to it than that but that's one of the basic purposes..

Education is one of those subjects that has so many applications its hard to pin down the exact reasons for it.. But one way to get close is to go backwards in time where the educational boundaries of human knowledge were far more constrained..

Why did we education our children back in the biblical days? Because if we didn't, we'd have to spoon feed them by hand and clean their rear ends. We educated our children to help us remain as independent as we could be.. to grow our food, repair our homes, defend our territory.

Its obviously much more than that today.. but the basic thing remains the same. An educated society is an independent society.

 

[Mudinyeri]

sometimes it is for power and control

I was wondering if this was where the OP was headed.

 

[Resha Caner]

sometimes it is for power and control

Yes, sometimes it is.

 

[Resha Caner]

We educate to be independent at all levels. We educate our children so the parents do not have to care for them all their lives.. We educate our young adults so they can contribute to our society so that our species will be independent.

That's the best I can do.. There's more to it than that but that's one of the basic purposes.

That helps. Thanks.

Its obviously much more than that today.. but the basic thing remains the same. An educated society is an independent society.

So do you disagree with Noxot?

 

[Murby]

So do you disagree with Noxot?

His statement can be taken two ways... I disagree with both.

1. Acquiring education for power and control... If this were the case, we'd be the United States of Einstein or the United States of Hawking.. I know astrophysicists who are so smart it's frightening, but they're not interested in power or control..
In fact, it seems to me that the more educated one becomes, the more they crave education and the less interested in power and control they seem to be.

2. Educating the masses to gain power and control over them.. This isn't education, its indoctrination and its a very different thing. Religion being the gold star standard for which all others are compared.

 

[Resha Caner]

1. Acquiring education for power and control... If this were the case, we'd be the United States of Einstein or the United States of Hawking.. I know astrophysicists who are so smart it's frightening, but they're not interested in power or control..
In fact, it seems to me that the more educated one becomes, the more they crave education and the less interested in power and control they seem to be.

That's an anecdotal answer ... and both your examples are physicists - even from within the narrow cosmological evirons of physics. I'm sure examples of the opposite could be given.

2. Educating the masses to gain power and control over them.. This isn't education, its indoctrination and its a very different thing. Religion being the gold star standard for which all others are compared.

And this is just semantics. You can call it indoctrination just as easily as those doing the indoctrinating can call it education.

I get your point, and don't disagree. I'm just not convinced education is focused solely on the independence you speak of.

 

[Murby]

I'm just not convinced education is focused solely on the independence you speak of.

You could very well be right.. That was my 60 second answer... best I could come up with

 

[Noxot]

education is whatever spirit/mind/being it is of. things should be carefully studied. lets not forget that there might be ideas of abstract things such as "schools" but a real school is by no means limited by the abstract idea of what "school" means or might mean.

to know reality we must as much as we can function in reality. not only by concepts and structures of knowing, which are secondary and helpful if in their right place but also by the spirits that things are composed of, which can be for one person an entire life of study seeing as that part of reality is dynamic.

 

[Winken]

I often wonder what current education in the USA is about, what its purpose is..... I see a lot of twisting going out "out there" due to political correctness, lgbt issues, left-wing / right-wing, all overpowering the process, leaving it in distorted disarray. I note that the expertise of our college / university graduates is not up to the challenge of organization in a dis-organized environment.

 

[Noxot]

from my own self I would define education as something like "to learn" or "to know". so education seems to me to be a naturally occurring part of human existence.

 

[Resha Caner]

You could very well be right.. That was my 60 second answer... best I could come up with

And a valid point. I didn't mean to disparage it.