It has been a few weeks since I
wrote a post for this blog. The reason for this silence has been twofold,
firstly the recent visit of our friend Janet and secondly the invigilating and
marking of our final exams. Round one of exams is now complete and we have a
few days of being a little less busy before starting the re-sit exams on
Wednesday. This short space in which to breath is a chance for a little more
reflection.
Seven months of being a teacher
has set me thinking a lot about education and what it means to really educate
another person. What is the point of education? The best response I can give at
this stage is that to educate another person is to challenge and enable them to
become fully alive.
Many of our students, before
studying here, have spent years in different educational establishments being
taught, and yet they seem, in some cases, to have learnt very little. The style
of education they have received seems to have been very much a process of
accumulating a bank of facts in their heads rather than encouraging them to
think critically. Our students know a lot of ‘facts’ but they find it very
difficult to take these facts they have learnt and apply them to real life
situations in a critical way. They find it very hard to make their knowledge
useful. Questions which involve having to work out what they need to do as well
as actually doing it are often a step too far. In any given situation there
might be several different ways to say the same thing, to calculate the correct
solution or to build a given project, our students find the choice and
discernment process necessary to work out which method is the best in any given
situation very challenging.
Perhaps the struggle to think
through and make reflected-on choices is a common struggle. The ability to
think critically is, I think, an essential life skill. In real life there is
rarely only one possible truth. Being among those who find this deeper thinking
hard has shown me that there is a clear link between being able to solve a
maths or technology problem and being able to reflect more deeply on life. The
ability to look at a situation from different points of view in one sphere
naturally leads to being able to think more generally.
To philosophise is not to engage
in abstract discussion of metaphysics it is to constantly allow life to question
us, to be open to new possibility and new potential. To be fully alive we must
be free enough to be able to embrace what is new. One of the saddest things
which can happen to a person is that they find themselves, for whatever reason,
unable to cope with the constant newness necessary to be fully alive. New
relationships are rejected, new experiences are avoided and new ideas are
ignored. Too often, like a little children scared on her first day at school, a
person can be too scared to embrace newness.
To be locked rigidly into one way
of being or understanding is to stifle ourselves. So perhaps the most important
job of any educator is to set those in their care free mentally and emotionally
to be able to really reflect on life and to challenge themselves. A good
teacher is able to help their students to contemplate the questions which they fear
will reveal truths they won’t like. Being
open to new and original ways of understanding both ourselves and our world is
perhaps the definition of being a fully educated person.
Good education is transformative.
Realising and embracing the reality that there is more than one way to multiply
a number, make a cabinet, construct a sentence, wire a circuit or fix an engine
is a first step on a journey towards real freedom and real happiness.
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