A purpose of individual education

Comment by Rolf Reinhardt

Many politicians and business people are seeing especially here in Europe overall one reason for individual education: The ability to compete with cheaper labour forces and countries with more natural resources. Simply, being able to find a job on the market, could be in their view a reason for individual education.

Yes, it is true that in particular in the Western world the economy is mostly based on knowledge. But that doesn't automatically mean one should cut expenses for teaching art in schools or other subjects which are not directly related to Mathematics and Engineering, as it is happening at the moment.

Don't get me wrong: I am as well a graduated Engineer, however, one should be able to ask the question about the purpose of education for individuals.

When we look at a typical development of an individual, we can distinguish different stages such as a newborn, being totally depending on its environment which is nurturing and protecting. After some years, a child recognises its possibility to not only receive but to also offer something - in particular to its closest contacts like the mother. That can be for example a bouquet of flowers from the nearby meadow or something it has tinkered in the kindergarden. 

Step by step, the child is realizing that the world is much more complex and consists not only of the own familiy, the friends and the neighbours. In particular a teenager is often willing to engage in school activities and to overtake some responsibility for others. Typically, many students are idealistic and most willing to change something for the better. We see also currently in Barcelona and Athens, that young people are tending to stand-up earlier and fight for their rights.

However, becoming once employees, many of them adapt to the companies' policies and act in compliance to what is demanded from them. Even, they split their life into "work" and "spare" time. By this, young people are starting to suppress questioning about "good" or "bad", "moral" or "amoral" activities of their employer - who wants to bite the hand that feeds one? 

And there is even more: the own career which shall lead to one's own wealth and happiness, becomes important. It is about "realising yourself", and especially men but also more and more women are searching for competition about anything of status related things like money, jobtitles, coolness-factor, a trained body and a suitable partner.

Unfortunately, none of these goods are sustainable and really fulfilling. As impermanence is characterising our life, there is not much which is in the end really sustainable. In particular in our society which is focused on the ego and on consumption, the concept of personal growth and the related education needs to be rethought.

Recently, I came along an interesting RSA Animate Talk about the 21st Century Enlightenment which "should champion a more self-aware socially embedded model of autonomy":

Some of the aspects mentioned by Matthew Taylor are indeed pointing exactly in the right direction such as that "the stock of global empathy has to grow if we argue to reach agreements which pit the long-term needs of the whole planet and all its people".

Matthew is proposing "fostering empathic capacity to be as just as important to achieving a world of citizens at peace with each other and with themeselves" - he sees that as much as important as education. For me, the empathic capacity is simply one of the main purposes of individual education and one of its highest objectives.

Benjamin Bloom has developed a taxonomy of educational objectives (link to a graphic at Wikipedia) in 1956 which is starting from the acquisition of knowledge, leading via comprehension, application, analysis and synthesis to evaluation.

Here, he has already mentioned an important aspect of evaluation as the highest educational objective: values. What is still missing is the question who is going to define those values? Shall it be based on an individual perception?

Coming back to the part in the beginning, describing the growing process of a child and its recognition of a wider and more complex world, the values have to be what is shared with others. And here, one could even see a general scale of personal maturity or growth in the question to which extend the individual can be empathic not only with its own family, friends, colleagues or neighbours.

Matthew asks for a "philosophical and spiritual debate who we might aspire to be" and encourages individuals to "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world".

This advice is part of a more general development of individuals one could summarize as an educational purpose:

1. Develop an understanding through gathering, synthezing and analyzing information
2. Develop applications out of the understanding through creativity and critical thinking - and to self-reflect on these experiences
3. Develop understanding for the views of others through participation, communication and collaboration based on common and universal values

What are you thinking of this approach? Please leave a comment in case you are interested to enter a debate.