Search This Blog

Friday, April 15, 2011

True Education Begins With Questioning

There's a difference between being educated and being smart. Smart people aren't always educated and educated people aren't always smart. Education isn't what most people think it is... It's an internal dialogue that begins with questioning. This is uncomfortable for many people, but we find ourselves increasingly in a world of competing ideas with very powerful forces attempting to sway the battle for our loyalties. Those who take many things at face value will feel whipsawed by the swirling and ebbing tides of battle. Those who live in a darker world will struggle against the angels of their better natures and live a lie. But those who understand that the true measure of wealth is the ability to help others, will see clearly their way forward. Many will loosen their chains of ignorance and free their minds to question underlying assumptions. Only then, can many be considered truly free.

Education is for anyone at any time, but it requires a receptive mind and the proper environmental and social conditions to encourage it in the young. Our efforts to “reform” education with more bureaucracy or more money only show our ignorance of a true education. Teachers aren’t the problem. The children aren’t the problem. The bureaucracy that fails to know that a true education needs to be nourished and grown like a garden for children to engage and explore in are the problem.

Play and education are what most children do naturally in a safe and supportive environment. Chop the bureaucracy and allow children to learn with the teachers who care enough to support and nurture them.