Education? What is it?

‘Education’ a single word with a huge and deep meaning. Education is what makes us a better person. Often people think that studying and bagging in a few degrees makes them educated but no, it makes them literate but not educated. Education in my opinion, is that source which develops us as a person i.e. overall development and helps us deal with our life in a better way. And many times, we find a person who is highly qualified but lacks proper education, fails to be successful. Hence, education is important and more than that a ‘good’ education is important.

What is ‘Good’ Education? Where does it come from?

It comes from a good environment which includes our school, college or any institution to which we belong and of course from our parents who are our first teachers. It also comes to us from our culture, our religion, our lifestyle and thus everything around us effects everything within us. 

In changing times and with increasing challenges, the need and importance of education is greater and needs to constantly develop. There are a large number of people who are working hard to make the education system excellent and better day by day. Promoting excellence in education is the need of the hour and the most important contribution of people working towards excellence in education is to make sure they understand how to do it, work on the student teacher relationship, provide education after understanding the learning style and ability of the students. Imbibing certain qualities in people right from their childhood such as making the most of the available time, absorbing what’s been taught, using the knowledge in the right place at the right time, also having an understanding of how to do it so that the importance of education is understood and prioritized at every step of life. Every parent, teacher, student, school and institution together make it a system and each one associated has the responsibility of making it better with their skills, hard work, and zeal including constantly learning and adapting to new techniques.

Promoting excellence in education makes it more qualitative and smoothens the progress of the system itself. By adapting new teaching techniques, using innovative and interactive methods, learning can be made more interesting and thus more long lasting. This allows us to teach more and them to learn more, thus proving that only constant learning can create excellence in education.

Education is a not a one-time process, we can learn from anything and anyone around us. When we become truly able to learn from situations around us, then the process of growth becomes clear and the path to wisdom appears. Learning is a lifelong process, but it all starts with a thought "I want to learn". They say, 'life is the best teacher', true that, it does teach us the best of lessons. Also, everyone in our life is a teacher. There is a lot to learn from our elders and their experiences, lot to learn from our younger generation, a lot to learn from animals and it goes on.

Imagine there is a fisherman who have spent his entire life in the middle of a sea for earning his livelihood through fishing and there is a professor with multiple Ph. Ds. who have spent his entire life studying and researching about oceans and seas. Whom do you think will survive a storm if they are stuck in the middle of a sea? One has purely practical knowledge about waters, waves, handling climatic changes etc. while the other one has only theoretical knowledge about the same. Because learning something sitting in a room and learning the same on the field are different exposures. But to actually survive a storm may be both the fisherman and the professor need each other and that’s the same relation between education and knowledge. Both can exist without each other but the combination of both will definitely help survive.

To understand the difference between uneducated and educated people, it is necessary to know the difference between knowledge and half knowledge, to understand the difference between being a literate and being educated, to understand the difference between having knowledge and having information about something. Those who think they are educated and stop learning have incomplete knowledge and this is worse than having no knowledge. A person who is uneducated will be willing to listen and understand, making it appear that uneducated people are willing to learn more, but that is only when those who are literate, choose not to learn further.

Also, the most impressionable ages in the life of a person, are the ones between 4 and 17, and this is where the education (not books and exams), comes in the form of parents, grandparents, friends, classmates, teachers and everyone around. This is where values can be taught, and made to last a lifetime. Sports, playing, celebrating festivals, listening to stories, asking questions, being able to apply the lessons taught at school in real life i.e. learning in experimental, experiential and practical manner like learning science through cooking or by doing simple household chores, taking tuition to juniors, these all have an impact in the future of the child.

Many years we lived till now, a lot we learned - personally & professionally, what next? Share your knowledge. Knowledge is something like the more we share the more we get. Let us care and share and see the wonders happen.

“To get the best, give the best”

WE LIVE ONLY ONCE #WLOO

-Preneeja Peelukhana