ON EDUCATION

ON EDUCATION

All of us are familiar with the word education. But what is really education? In this essay we will go into an exploration of this crucial topic and I hope that at the end you will gain a clear understanding of what really education means.

To understand education, we must first understand man’s nature. What kind of being is man?

There are many theories about man and I am not going to go into that now. We will simply look at some facts and come to a conclusion about man that we can all agree upon. If you look at the living world, you will see a strange fact. Whereas plants and animals have automatic ways of survival, man actually does not. A dog for example is fit , has the required knowledge soon after birth. A palnt grows automatically. There need be no school that animals and plants have to go to to learn and get the knowledge of their survival.

Man is different. In what exact way is man different?

Man has a power far surpassing that of animals or plants. It is the power of his thinking mind. But you will agree with me that this power is not automatic. By this mean that man cannot remain still and everything propels him from within and he is able to take actions. Man does not function like that. That is what is the essential difference between man and animals. Man has to choose and to choose he has to know things. Even to know things he has to focus his attention and make effort to understand the things around him.

This thinking capacity that he is endowed with is his power but he has to use that power. He has to acquire all the knowledge necessary for him to survive

Let us now go a little deeper into what thinking really is and what really is knowledge.

Let us take an example. Suppose you want to know about electricity. How would you learn? You would ask questions in that subject and there are a whole load of questions that would come to you. A pattern is given below

What is that thing that runs through wires?

How did man discover that?

What were the experiments done to discover that?

When was the battery discovered?

What happens inside a battery really?

How does a motor run, i.e. how does electricity exactly give a turning motion ?

How do we get electric power?

Etc etc

These are natural questions. But to answer that we must seriously begin on a first hand journey into reading, experimenting, looking at things, talking to experts and more. In this whole precess your desire is actually to see the full truth about electricity by your own eyes and mind.

Now when you finish this process , you will not only understand electricity in depth but the WHOLE that is the world!

Let me explain…

First you will understand that certain experiments with just rubbing various materials gave rise to a strange effect t- attraction of some bodies and repulsion of some bodies and you will understand why the scientists had to conclude that there are 2 types of something that they called charge and one they named positive charge and another negative charge.

Then they created the battery where a potential difference is constantly maintained between the 2 ends of the battery and then lo! One day Oersted discovers that this current that flows when the 2 ends of the battery is connected gives rise to a magnetic effect and then Faraday tries out lots of experiments and finds out that a moving magnet induces electric current.

So at once , see the development, we started by rubbing and ended up with understanding the mysterious working of nature…

The story does not end here. What is this charge? From where does it originate? And that takes us to the long series of steps that leads to the staggering fact that everything, an inch of anything is made up of crores of atoms or combination of atoms called molecules.

This fact virtually opens a door to the whole of physics, chemistry and biology and the working of all modern inventions. In this whole process, are we not struck by all this? Do we not get a first hand understanding of not just physics but how we can think and acquire knowledge? Does it not lead to a real , original self confidence?

The answer is a resounding YES. No matter where you start from, you will necessarily end up knowing the whole world.

So what is knowledge?

Knowledge is an interconnected whole and once to know that is to become really powerful and hold the whole world in the palm of ones hand as a unit in simple terms...

This kind of a power , what is the use of this kind of power?

This leads to a real , sincere and successful life in the deepest sense. Only a man who has real knowledge has a power to then use that knowledge to create new inventions, services, products, he becomes very productive in life and he becomes a purposive human being. In fact he is brimming with 100 ideas of new things that can be done. Needless to say, such a person is happy, deeply, spiritually fulfilled and also paves his way and earns his physical survival. He has self confidence and self esteem and he is always charged and happy and enthusiastic. He gives meaning to life and makes a difference. All great work that has been done , all the good that you see in the world is because of people exactly like this who have discovered knowledge and , creativity and personal fulfilment and happiness.

So this is the nature of life and man’s duty is to acquire real knowledge as explained above and lead a happy life.

Now we can be more clear when we ask the question- what is education?

Education should facilitate the above in a child in the primary, high school and higher levels of education.

But you see a sad thing all around us. This is not happening. What you see is that most children are bored by studies and study more as a duty, as a routine and out of fear not as an exploration and making discoveries. We all went through this kind of education and we all had only a vague knowledge of our subjects . this is simply because the whole thing was not shown to us because the teachers largely themselves did not know the whole as explained above. So this is perpetuated with no break .

Let us now ask one last question. Why is the world on such a low level? Why is it that we cannot even discover discovered knowledge? Wherever we turn, we see mediocrity and an average life. This lack of true understanding reflects in the way we live too

We do not have our own original way of thinking so we simply become followers and blindly accept others. , the majority’s opinions. We live a second hand life and we do not know that we are living a second hand life, we are completely blind.

So we become prey to any fashionable slogans, usually false and the world's problems never get down to be solved.

The whole world is blind and only a few men keep it going and they are never given the due because of blindness.

That power leads to work, happiness, purpose, peace, living as man, self esteem, character

If this is the case then what is education?

Gaining of true knowledge, based on facts, making sense, growing in power, becoming a man is education

Is it happening? What is happening?

Rote memorization, nothing connects to anything, no feeling for things, feeling means what? It means to see with ones own eyes, being sensitive to things, harmony between head and heart, happiness…

All this is missing….

Why is education in such a state?

Men have not been empowered to teach, there is mass ignorance. Of a proper education as outlined above.

Why has there been such a result (of mass ignorance)?

Why has the world not discovered knowledge?

More a pretence, low level living, as living has not been understood

Why?

Because a philosophy that talks about man's nature has not been upheld, that man is a being of reason, that he has to live for himself. What has been upheld is that man should give up and men in their confused state do that. History is still young and we are still savage creatures.

So what must we do?

We must understand man, understand ourselves, and educate ourselves and achieve happiness and then we must spread that.