Don't Seek Education, Seek Knowledge

Many words make me cringe. "We" and "our", when not specifically pertaining to the people you directly know or associate with on a personal level, top the list. Probably third is "education".

The word, just like so many, has been twisted, turned and co-opted over time. Just like the word "liberal" used to mean someone almost of anarchist leanings, but now signifies almost the exact opposite: a leftist statist. Or how the word "anarchism" has also been skewed through propaganda to connote the opposite of what it is. Education can mean one of many things depending on who you talk to.

Education has a different meaning depending on who is doing the educating. William Torrey Harris, the once US Commissioner of Education, probably best defined education in the US in 1906 when he said that "substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual."

H.L. Mencken explained further in arguing that the "aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality."

That is why, really, the only education that matters is to teach someone how to think critically. Once someone is armed with that ability, then they can seek knowledge in whatever they wish to learn, and be able to think critically in order to separate what is truth from what is fabrication. Note that the last thing a child would ever be taught in a public school is logic, rationality, and critical thinking, which would be counter to the intended goal.

Margaret Mead put it simply when she said, "Children must be taught how to think, not what to think."

Richard Dawkins

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