“What is good education?” is a question
that has befuddled philosophers, educationalists, parents and students alike
since times immemorial. A few years ago, when I started thinking of higher
education, I knew I needed good education, but I did not know what “good
education” actually meant. Now that I'm a few months into my post-graduation,
it’s time to revisit my understanding and see if I'm any better at defining “good
education”.
Like all good things, good
education is hard to get, and harder to define. Because one cannot get what one cannot
define (at least in the normal course of things), one is caught in a catch-22
situation. The problem is exacerbated in the Indian context since from early
days asking questions is discouraged, challenging one’s teacher is
treated as disobedience and rote learning is promoted in the place of independent
thinking. However, all is not lost, since we as a civilization have a long
history, longer than most civilizations of the present, to look into. An
advantage of the study of history is it throws up surprising answers which are
as relevant today as they were during the period in which they were first
written down. I think this is a result of the cyclic nature of time (not
scientifically proven), much like the cyclic nature of fashion (easily
observed). To put it succinctly, history
repeats.
That the Indians lay a lot of
emphasis on education needn't be reiterated, evidenced by the fact that we have
a Goddess of knowledge who, at least to the philosophers, is more important
than the Goddess of Wealth. Given this emphasis, there must be something in our
culture (my definition - a set of repeated, acceptable behaviour passed down the
generations, as opposed to tradition, which may or may not be passed down) that
points at what constitutes good education. The search doesn't take very long –
we have teachings that are celebrated and worshipped as worthy of studying,
emulating and internalizing by all and sundry. The Bhagavad Gita, which contains the teachings of Lord Krishna to
Arjuna, the lesser known Yoga Vasishta, which
contains the teachings of the sage Vasishta to Lord Rama, and the Tripura Rahasya, which contains the
teachings of Dattateya to Lord Parashurama (a favourite of Ramana Maharshi of
Arunachalam) are all studied with great care (mostly) by philosophers. Although
much of these books deal with the metaphysical, contemporary business/real
world issues such as concentration, hard work, health, family, societal
welfare, duties of citizens and rulers, and ethics are dealt with in great
detail in these books.
Now that we have identified some
of the great instructors and their instructions, the next step is to identify
the outcomes of such instructors and instructions. It is said that “the cause is hidden in the effect”. Like
cotton (cause) in the threads that are weaved together into a fabric (effect),
like clay (cause) that remains in the pot (effect) after the skilful touch of
a potter, a good education (cause) remains and reflects in the person (effect) who has received such education. I now list a few of these effects that I
believe signal the outcome of a good education.
1 Independent thinking – a good education promotes
thinking. Much like the proverb “give a man a fish…”, an education that equips
a man with a lot of facts is a useless education, since in today’s world, facts
are available at everyone’s fingertips. It’s what one does with those facts
that define the effectiveness of one’s learning.
2 Useful skill – a good education equips one with
some useful skill at the end of it. It could be something as concrete as the
ability to fix a broken window, or as abstract as modern art, but it has to be useful
to the society at large. I do not use “useful” as a synonym to employable,
since not all useful skills can find gainful employment easily.
3 Humility – why does a good education instil humility in students? The answer is simple – a good education exposes students
to as many disciplines of study as possible, thereby showing them how little
they know.
4 Ethics – Ethics (or its close cousins – honesty,
integrity) is perhaps the most important quality of a truly educated person. An
uneducated person may behave in an unethical way due to sheer ignorance of the
rules (still unethical, perhaps even illegal), but an educated person behaving
in such a manner is unforgivable. All great teachings (including the ones
mentioned earlier in this post) lay great emphasis on ethics, and frowns upon
unethical/dishonest behaviour. Ethics is increasingly becoming the most
important quality of leadership, and anyone not striving to internalize and
live by qualities such as honesty and integrity is not getting good education,
irrespective of his or her grades, or the prestige associated with the institute of learning.
5 Teachers – as anyone who teaches you anything, a
good teacher will demonstrate all the four qualities I've listed above, since practising is the best way of preaching!
I think these five are the
important causes that presuppose a “good education”, and thereby make
identifying “good education” easier, even without a precise definition. What do
you think?
Teacher touches future. Good teacher and eager student best enable good education. I concur that good education is hard to find, hard to define. Furthermore, I think good education demands rock steady focus. While I was reading this intriguing thought of yours, I remember an anecdote shared by my grandmother who has not been through formal education but has lot of wisdom to share from lessons she has managed to gather. She recited beautifully that Goddess of knowledge sits on a hard rock with musical instrument in her hand and a graceful peacock in vicinity. The reason to choose hard rock to be seated by the Goddess symbolises that tryst with learning insists steady, enduring efforts that are onerous to practice. Your thoughts made me meet my grandmother's anecdote in refreshing way...
ReplyDeleteKeep writing! Its enlivening! :)
Thank you for your kind words and encouragement. Your grandmother was a wise woman who knew what education truly meant :-)
Delete:)
ReplyDeleteI thought I'd drop a couple of notes here, given the title of the piece. I don't take issue with the bullet point list at the end - some of the points are self-explanatory and a few, like that of 'useful skill', trite or trivial. The major problems are with the preamble to this list.
ReplyDeleteFor starters, the question of what constitutes a good education has befuddled very few. Largely, anyone you meet on the street can identify what constitutes good education for him/herself. Tomes have been written on the subject. I'll confine myself with what Aristotle had to say in his Metaphysics:
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
It resonates fully with my perspective and, to my mind, balances consistency with completeness. That's all that I need. Having defined it so, allow me to suggest that it is not hard to get. Asking questions is not discouraged in the Indian context : I have found teachers to love questions that lead out from what they have been covering into what they intend to. Rote learning can be blamed on your parents and culture (ancient scriptures passed down orally through generations and this was beautifully exploited by the British to create an army of clerks).
A few pedantic points: the much-bandied about trope of 'longer/-est' civilization is largely inconsequential; a more relevant example would have been based on intrinsic value such as that of the Romans (given its architectural, scientific, philosophical, political and imperial achievements) and the fact that it is still found relevant across the globe (and not only in the West). The other is regarding the cyclicity of time: human behavior is cyclical (largely unchanged and revisited generation to generation; also the reason for why history repeats itself. Time is just the dimension in which these cycles occur and are observed/recorded. And, yes, this is largely a reason why a student of history should never be surprised at finding current relevance to past threads of occurrences.
The distinction made out between culture and tradition also appears weak since a culture subsumes its traditions within itself for its definition. If this be correct, the paragraph makes a superfluous point: every culture has its set of works that it regards highly and keeps alive, generation to generation. There is nothing empirical to suggest that the emphasis on education was unique to the Indian iconography and tradition.
The issues of concentration, hard work etc are tangential at best, as to what constitutes good education. Their understanding, ritualization and application can, at best, serve to aid education but can never supplant/substitute for it. And this point becomes acutely visible if one were to accept Aristotle's observation above.
The last point is regarding cause and effect. It is the desire of the weaver (cause) acting upon the material (cotton) that effects the cloth. The same is the case with the potter.
I'm surprised you feel anyone one meets on the street is able to identify what is good education. Given the rush we see in India for "good education" and the fact that hardly a handful seem to get that, mostly as an accident/coincidence rather than by design!
DeleteRote learning, whether as a consequence of culture or as a consequence of the requirements of examination, is bad, and that was the point I was trying to make. That it created an army of clerks is perhaps why we do not need such a system in the first place!!
I'm surprised you'd discount the "length" of civilization so lightly given it is closely linked to the other point you spoke about - the cyclic nature of history. I was merely arguing that longer the history, more the cycles one has available for study. One can hardly speak about what one hasn't studied (in my case, the Roman architecture etc.), and therefore I confined myself to examples I could think of and relate to, in an Indian context.
The emphasis on (school) education is unique to the Indian tradition (perhaps a few others) but clearly not so much in modern nations such as the US. The entire post was written from a POV of one seeking education in an institute, and it was in that context the tradition of "great teachings" was mentioned. A cursory examination of the list would tell you that 2 out of 3 works were set in a "school" ecosystem where the disciple set out to acquire education from a master.
You seem to have missed my point regarding the nature of cause and effect. Surely, there is an efficient cause such as the ones you mentioned, but I was hinting at a material cause that remains hidden, yet visible upon examination. It is consistent with my belief that an external agent (Teacher) does not teach anything new (with the exception of perhaps, "skills"), but helps a student reflect within,
You misread quite a bit of what I said. The fact that only a handful in India achieve good education is more a consequence of prosaic considerations than anything else, especially if you were to take primary education in rural areas (willingness and training of teachers; arrangements for their remuneration; the fact that teaching, as a profession or vocation, is rather low down the list of possibilities for young men and women looking for one). Parents of wards, serious about their education, generally know (without necessarily being able to define it as it were) what it is constituted of - at least for themselves, if they do not claim to speak for others. The point I am making is that they would be able to recognize what it is.
DeleteThe point I made about rote learning, leading out from your complaint, is that it was an intrinsic feature of India's culture and traditions. There are multiple reasons for its persistence to this day and age, but I guess we would not really diverge in our views on that.
Sure,I could take your argument that more cycles of history are available for study. However, it raises the question of whether they contain any new lessons or are cycles repeating themselves because no lessons are being learnt therefrom. So which is it? And what is the intrinsic value of such cycles? The point I raised was merely to highlight the incongruity of your use of the 'length' paradigm in a post on the 'quality' of education. And it was more pedantic in nature, if you notice - you made a comment on the nature of time itself (instead of history) and expressed surprise at what you discovered through history. And yes, in this day of availability of information, it is a little surprising that you feel the need for a 'study' of Roman architecture etc (we have a primer on that in middle school and can easily follow up now, if interested in assessing relative impact and modern influence of ancient civilizations).
Just to place the last paragraph above into perspective - 'school' education in most other ancient civilizations was limited to the classes, becoming more democratic and widespread with the passage of time. However, it was the other way around for India - the caste system atrophied what was once a widespread practice. So are we to be proud of the fact that we once had a great system and systematically corrupted it?
I'm glad you revert back to Aristotle for the distinction between what constitutes a material cause and what is merely efficient. That was not self-evident in the first reading of your post.
Now that we've got these issues out of the way - what do you think of your list characterizing good education vis-a-vis the deceptively simple demand from Aristotle?
The study of history is important (apart from a Historian's purely academic perspective) since one can learn about similar problems that people of a different age faced, and how they went about solving it. That implies, with each cycle, there are bound to be differences in how a problem manifests and how they are solved, although the underlying issues remain similar.
DeleteI do not think my list is at loggerheads with what Aristotle demands of an educated mind. In fact, some of the elements of the list are a prerequisite to achieve what he expects - an independent thinking in order to be able to toy with an idea, the humility to give deserving ideas a chance, and an honest attempt at dissecting the idea and weighing its pros and cons.