Knowledge of real education

Meaning:

According to some learned people, the word "Education" has been derived from the Latin term "Educatum" which means the act of teaching or training. A group of educationists say that it has come from another Latin word "Educare" which means "to bring up" or "to raise".

According to a few others, the word "Education" has originated from another Latin term "Educere" which means "to lead forth" or "to come out". All these meanings indicate that education seeks to nourish the good qualities in man and draw out the best in every individual. Education seeks to develop the innate inner capacities of man.

By educating an individual we attempt to give him some desirable knowledge, understanding, skills, interests, attitudes and critical 'thinking. That is, he acquires knowledge of history, geography, arithmetic, languages and sciences.

He develops some understanding about the deeper things in life, the complex human relations, and the cause and effect relationship and so on. He gets some skills in writing, speaking, calculating, drawing, operating some equipment etc. He develops some interests in and attitudes towards social work, democratic living, co-operative management and so on.

As an individual in the society, he has to think critically about various issues in life and take decisions about them being free from bias and prejudices, superstitions and blind beliefs. Thus, he has to learn all these qualities of head, hand and heart through the process of education.

Definitions of Education:

The Concepts of Education as given by prominent Indian educationists are as follows.

Principles of Education and School Organization;

1. Rigved: "Education is something which makes man self-reliant and selfless".

2. Upanishad: "Education is for liberation".

3. Bhagavad Gita: "Nothing is more purifying on earth than wisdom."

4. Shankaracharya: "Education is the realization of self'.

5. Gunrunner: "Education is self realization and service to people".

6. Kautilya: "Education means training of the country and love of the nation".

7. Panini: "Human education means the training which one gets from nature".

8. Vivekanand: “Education is the manifestation of the divine perfection, already existing in man."

9. Gandhi: "By education, I mean an all-round drawing out of the best in the Child and man body, mind and spirit."

10. Tagore: "The widest road leading to the solution of all our problems is education."

11. Sri Aurobindo: "Education which will offer the tools whereby one can live for the divine, for the country, for oneself and for others and this must be the ideal of every school which calls itself national".

Concepts of Education as defined by Western philosophers.

1. Socrates: "Education means the bringing out of the ideas of universal validity which are latent in the mind of every man".

2. Plato: "Education is the capacity to feel pleasure and pain at the right moment. It develops in the body and in the soul of the pupil all the beauty and all the perfection which he is capable of."

3. Aristotle: "Education is the creation of a sound mind in a sound body. It develops man's faculty, especially his mind so that he may be able to enjoy the contemplation of supreme truth, goodness and beauty of which perfect happiness essentially consists.

4. Rousseau: "Education of man commences at his birth; before he can speak, before he can understand he is already instructed. Experience is the forerunner of the perfect".

5. Herbert Spencer: "Education is complete living".

6. Heinrich Pestalozzi: "Education is natural harmonious and progressive development of man's innate powers".

7. Friedrich Willian Froebel: "Education is unfoldment of what is already enfolded in the germ. It is the process through which the child makes internal external".       

50 definitions

1. An educated person has the ability to think clearly and independently.

2. An educated person has good judgment.

3. An educated person knows how to learn.

4. An educated person knows how to acquire desired skills by identifying and utilizing available resources, deconstructing the process required for learning a particular skill, and experimenting with potential approaches.

5. An educated person has the ability to take initiative and work alone.

6. An educated person has the ability to communicate thoughts and ideas in writing, clearly and concisely.

7. An educated person has the ability to speak clearly.

8. An educated person has the ability to reason analytically and critically.

9. An educated person has the ability to think inductively and deductively.

10. An educated person questions assumptions.

11. An educated person doesn’t blindly accept what they are told; they go see for themselves. They can discern truth from error, regardless of the source.

12. An educated person knows how to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information (between the important and the trivial).

13. An educated person knows how to make productive use of knowledge; they know where to get the knowledge that they need, and they have the ability to organize that knowledge into a plan of action that is directed to a definite end.

14. An educated person understands human nature and has the ability to establish, maintain, and improve lasting relationships.

15. An educated person knows how to establish rapport with others; they know how get others to trust and respect them.

16. An educated person knows how to cooperate and collaborate effectively with others.

17. An educated person knows how to resolve conflicts with others.

18. An educated person knows how to persuade others.

19. An educated person has the ability to conceptualize and solve problems.

20. An educated person knows how to make decisions.

21. An educated person has the ability to see connections among disciplines, ideas and cultures.

22. An educated person is able to cross disciplinary boundaries and explore problems and their solutions from multiple perspectives.

23. An educated person is someone who has been educated holistically: creatively, culturally, spiritually, morally, physically, technologically, and intellectually.

24. An educated person has a broad liberal-arts education. They have a good overview of the following subjects: the natural sciences; the social sciences; history; geography; literature; philosophy; and theology.

25. An educated person has depth of knowledge—that is, specialized knowledge–in a particular field.

26. An educated person has achieved victory over themselves; they know how to withstand discomfort in the short term in order to achieve important goals in the long term.

27. An educated person has the capacity to endure and persevere.

28. An educated person is self-aware; they know how to perceive and manage their own internal states and emotions.

29. An educated person knows where and how to focus their attention.

30. An educated person has ethical values and has integrity.

31. An educated person has the ability and the discipline to do what is right.

32. An educated person is well-read and has cultural sophistication.

33. An educated person has equal esteem for everyone, without regard to gender, race, religion, country of origin, and so on.

34. An educated person understands their obligation to leave the world a little better than they found it.

35. An educated person is capable of doing new things; they have the ability to generate ideas and turn them into reality. An educated person is innovative.

36. An educated person is one whose natural curiosity has been awakened with the purpose of satisfying that curiosity.

37. An educated person has the ability to identify needed behaviors and traits and turn them into habits.

38. An educated person has the ability to identify harmful behaviors and traits—including thinking habits that are not serving them well—and the ability to modify them.

39. An educated person has the ability to keep their life in proper balance.

40. An educated person has the flexibility to admit when they’re wrong.

41. An educated person has quantitative literacy; they know how to use arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and statistics to solve problems.

42. An educated person can speak at least one language other than their own.

43. An educated person has financial literacy; they have the knowledge necessary to make sound financial decisions.

44. An educated person is adaptable and knows how to deal with change.

45. An educated person knows how to handle ambiguity.

46. An educated person has the ability to explore alternative viewpoints.

47. An educated person has aesthetic appreciation; they can sing and dance well, play at least one musical instrument, and can appreciate architecture, great art, and other expressions of creative genius.

48. An educated person has developed the personal philosophy that will allow them to be happy and successful.

49. An educated person has the ability and the discipline to constantly improve.

50. An educated person has the ability to pursue lifelong learning.