Education can be many things

I have been thinking about the nature of education and always having been familiar with the noble aspects of this tenet of human society, I have not thought much about the negatives which it can manifest as.

Sir Francis Bacon is often attributed with having said “Knowledge is Power”. Regardless of who first said this, what is obvious is that it has become common currency as a phrase. There are various ways in which this can be interpreted but one I like, which is not so commonly encounterd is “Knowledge is only powerful when it is shared” (thank you Francis Benton).

This makes me think that education only gains it's potency when it is inclusive. To me, education is knowledge shared and it's carriage is enjoyment. The delight of having someone understand what you are saying is something which intimately social and enriches our environment. This inclusivity is key to empowering the knowledge which can make positive social change.

Whatever way I chalk up education in it's inclusive form, it yields equilateral benefits. It is when knowledge becomes an exclusive enterprise that it loses much of it's power and majesty. Education in it's highest form does not set people up to fail but constantly revisits it's last known communal point and endeavours to extend its horizon.

In these term education is when someone who knows something shares an expression of that knowledge with someone who is new to it. If the person who has the knowledge rejects the other person because they do not know what knowledge they hold, it is an exclusive enterprise and more akin to a mutual appreciation society devoid of fertile ground.

It is less about enriching the world (both inner and outer) through discourse and more about self affirmation through status comparison. Not allowing people to recount and adapt is not facilitating learning it is prescribing a colloquial elitism. Imagine if Albert Einstein's work had been forever rejected on the basis of a spelling or grammar error which is particular to a school of thought !

Many vocational teachers and academics have expressed to me that they learn that 'there is no stupid question, only stupid answers' and that 'if I truly know my subject then I can find a way to express it which will allow anyone to understand what I know.' This sharing is what has inspired in me an aspiration of the beauty of things which I previously thought dull, mundane, ugly or just rubbish.

Here is to the individual who made that vital and bright spark in our lives opening out 'a universe in a grain of sand' without motive beyond sharing the awe which makes their day to day life an ever extending pleasure.

Here is to the friend who taught me of the history and heritage in each brick or carefully hewn stone, signed by it's author in craftsmanship. Here is to those who have taken the time to enlighten me through entertaining chat over a coffee, beer or bite to eat, making me realise how much painstaking attention to detail has gone into the pointing of a building or the turn of a phrase.

Here is to the person who has recognised in others a passion and brought them into a fold to mentor them because they saw in another human themselves – someone who similarly did not have the knowledge once upon a time.

This is enlightenment and the betterment of all which is quite beyond the Malthusian spectre of resources. This is the path to the shared solution of such a logistical hill which we all address.

Here is to climbing that hill through constructive and not destructive means. Knowledge is a limitless resource and our existential crisis' are quite enough to bind us together. I also think that pleasures can bind us together too. Here is to you all who care to share and think !