Independent of the context in which it is mentioned, the word “education” remains at its core the term used to cover personal traits which we build for ourselves, such as knowledge, ability, empathy, attitude etc. Subsequently, since these traits are intangible, immaterial, shapeless, we could start from the following statement: education is the result of our mental (intellectual) development process which happens inevitably and variably to each of us over the course of life in various situations such as when we read, talk, listen, think, watch, sleep or simply perform a physical activity. We are born ready from the first day of life to start this process due to obvious reasons which makes us ubiquitously resemble such as the fact that we are gifted with the five+ senses, the ability to have emotions and to think (logically, abstract, creatively, critically, analytically, systemically) and so on. However, this process is different from person to person considering also the numerous obvious reasons which makes us ubiquitously distinct such as the genetics, the medical diagnostics, each experience lived, the nourishment, the surroundings, how we rest and protect our mental activity and so on.
This development process can evolve slower or faster from individual to individual and takes places probably during a person’s whole life under multiple forms because, even if we we will never be able to quantify it, anyone is educated one way or another. Hence, we cannot evaluate how educated we are or will have to be, but we can guide ourselves for example by analyzing what we are able to do, our attitudes in various situations and ultimately what we accomplished through the abilities and knowledge that we posses. Furthermore, following this logic, it’s a matter of course that this mental (intellectual) development process happens inevitably, differently and continuously for every one of us.
If the education can be indeed summarized using this logic, we deduct that the education has an individual branch, which stands for how a person preoccupies to develop knowledge, attitudes and abilities from activities started on own initiative (i.e. learning), and a collective branch, which stands for how a person is helped directly or indirectly to learn (i.e socializing, teaching, mentoring, advising, parenting etc.). Differently said, an important part of what education means consists of (i) all the activities to which a person participates to grow mentally (intellectually) from own initiative and (ii) the activities happening systematically to which a person gets exposed to such as the ones taking place in the family, the society, the social circle or the schooling institution. But what do we mean by knowledge, attitudes, abilities and other similar parts that a person develops throughout the education?
Briefly, about knowledge we could say that it represents the cumulus of information, notions and ideas that someone possess about any subject (being or non-being) reflecting its past, present and possible reality as we are creators mostly in the sphere of imagination and thinking, while in the sphere of external phenomena, we are mostly agents applying transformations to given elements through reorganization and combination. About abilities (capacities, capabilities, aptitudes) we could say that they represent the physical and psychomotor, cognitive and sensory means which we use to perform an activity. And about attitudes, we could say that they are the native and learned behaviors that individuals exhibit to influence their interpersonal interactions and their approach to ideas, persons and situations. Attitudes are learned and often a big part of the driving force of learning and the approach to doing tasks.
Nevertheless, we must admit that about humans and our surroundings we know and we don’t know many aspects, while others remain still uncertain. What is education, where, when, how, with whom and why we build it for ourselves are old questions, long debated, which will certainly remain open for discussion. But we could agree that inevitably we are all part of this genuine mental (intellectual) development process and that there are several key learnings which we should all understand and demonstrate throughout the process, especially at the level of attitudes. We invite you to stay connected to this project dedicated to education, which we will attempt to analyze from many angles and add it up with many other variables that fall under this beautiful education.
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