What does education mean?

I may have it wrong here, but I think education (literature, history, humanity, arts) was once only for the wealthy, who had no need to earn wages but had time to broaden their mind and learn about the world. The people who were not allowed to be educated were the ones who worked to afford a home to house a table.

Mollygo

Elegran @ Today 11:49 and further posts.
Very well put.

Education is also the ability to apply and use what you have learnt
You don’t need to do that or retain everything you learn, e.g. I learnt how to patch holes in my car with fibreglass patches and coating, a necessary skill, but one I no longer need.
Experience is a great teacher, but you have to have the opportunities to gain that experience.
The infamous job hunting feedback “We need someone with more experience.” highlights the difficulty we sometimes face in trying to learn by experience.

I think savvy employers can spot people with potential, even if they don't have experience. My son, who has a First in Politics and Economics and Masters, was snapped up by a company and has had two promotions in a year. When he told me that he had a job and I asked him what it was, he admitted he didn't really know what he was going to be doing. To say I was little concerned would be an understatement, but the company has a brilliant trainee/mentoring scheme in place and it's obvious now that he had the skills they needed to fill a gap. The skills have very little to do with the actual content of any of his courses, but he developed them as he was studying. The company is now paying for him to do a professional qualification and my concerns have evaporated.

Meanwhile, my son and I have silly conversations in German and Latin (his Latin is better than mine, but we both know enough to make puns), discuss history (usually Anglo Saxons or Corn Laws) and we both enjoy conversations with my son-in-law about genetics - none of which is of any financial gain to us. Other people discuss soaps or celebs or football or whatever floats their particular boats. That's all part of a wider topic known as "education" (IMO).

Macadia

I may have it wrong here, but I think education (literature, history, humanity, arts) was once only for the wealthy, who had no need to earn wages but had time to broaden their mind and learn about the world. The people who were not allowed to be educated were the ones who worked to afford a home to house a table.

I don't think you're wrong at all.

growstuff

David49

Royalty in the UK certainly get better much better education than most some of them use it usefully.
Billionaires certainly are, in their own way they are highly intelligent, whether it is broad is another matter, they are often patrons of arts which keeps their social set happy and all the politicians too.
It’s not relevant to everyday people.

But presumably most billionaires ensure their children inherit something. In those circumstances, it's unlikely the children would need to work, although I expect most of them do. The question is why do they need any education, if education (according to you) is acquiring the skills to earn money to put food on the table.

More down to earth royalty and the aristocracy do educate their children highly for social reasons, whether they need to work or not. Most aristocrats are small fry in the wealth scale and they usually do have working lives, their social style is very costly. But they pay privately for that kind of education, nothing to do with churning out workers they are the chiefs.

Education should be growth, change, improvement and enhancement and a lifelong endeavour.

It should always have an open mind.

It should never be narrow-minded, Never be the pursuit of reinforcements to outdated opinions.

Surely, education is ongoing? It’s not limited to school/college/university learning.

We are forever learning new things - about ourselves, our world and beyond.

Obviously, schooling provides a baseline, but I feel that until our dying day there will be opportunities for us to learn something and it’s not limited to gaining educational qualifications.

I would add, education is not down to a privileged lifestyle, either. Every single one of us has an opportunity to keep learning/discovering new things - life is a learning curve, surely?

Ziplok

I would add, education is not down to a privileged lifestyle, either. Every single one of us has an opportunity to keep learning/discovering new things - life is a learning curve, surely?

In some countries, formal education is a privelege. Let's not forget that and the hard work of people who work to change that.

Education is learning that is neither training or indoctrination. In practice, an educated individual has the mental tools for reasoned , understanding, and well judged decisions.

The level of formal education is often involved but not necessarily.

David49

growstuff

David49

Royalty in the UK certainly get better much better education than most some of them use it usefully.
Billionaires certainly are, in their own way they are highly intelligent, whether it is broad is another matter, they are often patrons of arts which keeps their social set happy and all the politicians too.
It’s not relevant to everyday people.

But presumably most billionaires ensure their children inherit something. In those circumstances, it's unlikely the children would need to work, although I expect most of them do. The question is why do they need any education, if education (according to you) is acquiring the skills to earn money to put food on the table.

More down to earth royalty and the aristocracy do educate their children highly for social reasons, whether they need to work or not. Most aristocrats are small fry in the wealth scale and they usually do have working lives, their social style is very costly. But they pay privately for that kind of education, nothing to do with churning out workers they are the chiefs.

According to you, they don't need an education.

Now you're adding an appearance of being educated to the reasons. Maybe being able to hold an informed conversation is as good a reason as any.

I think savvy employers can spot people with potential,

I can pick out who is going to make his mark in business, you see the Dragons doing that on TV, their product is not going to be useful but they are.

Doesnt matter wether they are 18 or 30 they are different, much more confident, so far 4 of my GC have been to Uni, 2 did well but no graduate jobs yet. I also have an 18 yr old mature far beyond his years he is going to be the highflier. He left grammar school at 16 straight to technical college, not interested in Uni, his sister is smart too, will get top grades.

Ziplok

I would add, education is not down to a privileged lifestyle, either. Every single one of us has an opportunity to keep learning/discovering new things - life is a learning curve, surely?

Learning how to drive is a case in point.

We learn how to drive the car but learning about road conditions, anticipating what other drivers might do, is a learning curve.

Adding to that - U3A is an example of learning new things even in older age.

David49

I think savvy employers can spot people with potential,

I can pick out who is going to make his mark in business, you see the Dragons doing that on TV, their product is not going to be useful but they are.

Doesnt matter wether they are 18 or 30 they are different, much more confident, so far 4 of my GC have been to Uni, 2 did well but no graduate jobs yet. I also have an 18 yr old mature far beyond his years he is going to be the highflier. He left grammar school at 16 straight to technical college, not interested in Uni, his sister is smart too, will get top grades.

My son does some quite complicated statistics and writing of reports based on the results. I've seen some of the work he does and I doubt if anybody without Maths A level could do it, no matter how intelligent or well-motivated. His Masters included specific training in report-writing and public policy. His area is housing and he did work experience as part of the degree in the Welsh government. His education has all came together to provide him with something an employer wanted. It possibly helped that his father is a property developer and he's been brought up surrounded by housing law. I've taught many bright 16 year olds, but never came across one who could do the work my son does.

Allira

Ziplok

I would add, education is not down to a privileged lifestyle, either. Every single one of us has an opportunity to keep learning/discovering new things - life is a learning curve, surely?

Learning how to drive is a case in point.

We learn how to drive the car but learning about road conditions, anticipating what other drivers might do, is a learning curve.

Adding to that - U3A is an example of learning new things even in older age.

I'm glad you mentioned U3A, which is a perfect example of people learning for the sake of it.

David49

“We should not be just churning out workers, we should be broadening children's horizons. Some children live in homes without a book.”

Quite right they don’t but they all have devices where information is instantly available, they have far more access to knowledge than we ever did, if the use it constructively

Elsewhere you spoke of education that included more than enable them to fulfill their "main need which is paying the rent and feeding the family" as being ^"great if you enjoy history, Shakespeare, travel, sport or any other activity but that is incidental to your main need"

You are showing that despite all the many posts on this thread which describe the several purposes of education you still don't understand the one which is explained to wouldbe teachers at the start of their first term.

A country (or its people) who know nothing of their history is doomed to repeat it. Someone may have a device with all the kmowledge in the world in their hand, to be accessed at the touch of a finger, but they also have all the false information, the invented evidence to "prove" the efficacy of a profitable snake-oil, the deepfakes, the scams, the paranoia of a deranged celebrity, the prejudices and hatred of every person who can type their worst thoughts directly into their device without a filter. If they don't know how to assess whether what they read is true or has been distorted to cheat them they going to be conned into buying rubbish because they didn't read the small print, are going to vote for the candidate who promises to achieve what is obviously impossible without doubling the cost of essential foods, are going to send all their savings to a plausible online stranger.

Macadia

Ziplok

I would add, education is not down to a privileged lifestyle, either. Every single one of us has an opportunity to keep learning/discovering new things - life is a learning curve, surely?

In some countries, formal education is a privelege. Let's not forget that and the hard work of people who work to change that.

I don’t dispute that in some countries, formal education is a privilege, nor do I forget that a lot of hard work has been done and continues to be done to enable formal education be accessible to all, so please don’t assume I’m ignorant of this fact. However, my understanding is that the OP was wanting us to discuss what we think education means overall, and so my view is that the education we as individuals acquire throughout our life is not just dependent upon having a privileged lifestyle or attending educational establishments beyond the compulsory (in this country) secondary level - we are all capable of becoming educated in so many ways whatever our ‘social’ status might be, whether we have a privileged lifestyle or a less privileged one, whether we have attended tertiary educational establishments or not.

I’m not talking about purely ‘formal’ education, rather I’m talking about education we acquire throughout our lives which we gain from many sources, not just necessarily from attending formal educational establishments. We learn things from each other, from watching tv and other media, from reading, from going about our everyday lives and interacting with others, from our lives at work and so on. Someone always brings a nugget of knowledge that we ourselves may not have known beforehand. Life is an education.

In a nutshell -

Learning the basics for the world of work is not the be-all and the end-all of education
With a good education the world is my oyster
We need people with vision for a brave new world
Because ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

Thank you Ziplok. It's up to posters what they discuss, but you described my intention when I started the thread.

I spent about 6 months of my life pondering this when I undertook teacher training. Part of the course. They stressed it is not training, it is not rote learning but a wider thing that covers the whole of life and spills over into just about everything we think and do. I think they were right.

Ziploc brought us closer to the answer of the OP question:

Q. What does education mean?

A. Life.

(Sorry Ziplok. I accidentally used the Italian spelling of your name.)

If you think education is the discovery of new things and new experiences that’s a problem. When you start the world of work that ends because you are entering an existing system that doesn’t change, repeating the same tasks day by day, until you complete more training and get promoted.

School is a combination of education and training maths, english, science could be termed training, history, geography, literature largely education

David49

If you think education is the discovery of new things and new experiences that’s a problem. When you start the world of work that ends because you are entering an existing system that doesn’t change, repeating the same tasks day by day, until you complete more training and get promoted.

School is a combination of education and training maths, english, science could be termed training, history, geography, literature largely education

Quite frankly, that post shows that you really don't understand what education is about. It isn't all about preparing robots to work for employers.

If humans really were robots and had no capacity for creative thinking, humanity would be static and evidence shows us that it isn't.

Your categorisation of school subjects into two groups training and education is laughable.

growstuff

David49

If you think education is the discovery of new things and new experiences that’s a problem. When you start the world of work that ends because you are entering an existing system that doesn’t change, repeating the same tasks day by day, until you complete more training and get promoted.

School is a combination of education and training maths, english, science could be termed training, history, geography, literature largely education

Quite frankly, that post shows that you really don't understand what education is about. It isn't all about preparing robots to work for employers.

If humans really were robots and had no capacity for creative thinking, humanity would be static and evidence shows us that it isn't.

Your categorisation of school subjects into two groups training and education is laughable.

The part you don’t understand is that changing from an education environment where you are discovering new experiences day by day to a work environment.

That’s a big leap because you are expected to be a robot following instructions and probably will be boring, that’s why some school leavers find it so difficult

David49, your views on education are flat, cold and lacking in any understanding that all people need more than the ability to pay the rent and put food on the table. Your suggestion that aristocrats get involved in the arts to suit their social circle misses the point by a mile.
There’s so much research evidence about the benefits of life long learning of the type described here by many posters. The arts contribute hugely to the mental health of our nation.