The Essence of Education

1. Write an essay on “The Essence of Education”. (1000-2000 words)

I cannot write this essay without reference to study of my own experienced and my daughter’s- placed in the harsh environment of the government schooling system and its observations of the stark belief systems of “the child to fit the system” and not “the system to fit the child” with reference to the what education should be about. This means different things to different people. To some this means a teacher teaching and passive learning taking place, the outcome is expected at the end of each year that each child has to achieve the same outcome and is graded accordingly.

The only problem with this is the removal of freedom and time constraints and a passive role for the child. Their inner spirit quashed, the overcrowded classrooms, noisy and harsh, a teacher that needs to get through a curriculum at the expense of the child. Many children simply will not prosper in this unkind environment where they sit for too long at a desk, have no say in activities and many times the harshness of the actual voice of the teacher is too much for the sensitivity of the child. Such over stimulation in the classroom environments are negative and have created new dysfunctions blamed on the child where the blame clearly lies in the environment the child is placed in. ADD, ADHD have become household names even in prominent private schools. Occupational therapy and educational psychologists are an economic spin off of these ills. Parents guided by fear that unless the child has all these expensive sessions and observations, lead to years of therapy that is expensive and does not achieve much unless the child is removed from the harshness of the environment. Ritalin is often prescribed to placate children to make the teachers life more bearable. But the stark reality is that there has been no respect shown for the child as an individual human being.

These children are often normal with no deficits, but require a change in environment and teaching methods. Not to forget to include a loving environment and teacher who loves children.

These environments place on the child an unusual barrage of negative sensory information and can lead to sensory overload. This is seen in children who cannot conform and do not perform in traditional classrooms and without the guidelines of the Montessori environment, but rather by passive teaching where there is control by force. Classes are often noisy and children frustrated at confined spaces and forced to learn at one pace, become disillusioned, depressed and unmanageable. Why? Because of the lack of respect there is a loss of dignity and the removal of the basic natural freedoms- the sense of self is lost. Along with excessive punishment and reward systems in place, children learn by example and carry through these impediments in life.

These causes can be simply named as impediments to the natural learning process inborn in all human beings. It is the driving force of all mankind to learn to function from the basics of walking, talking, mastering of the motor skills to the mastering of fine motor co-ordination that assist the development in the abstract thinking area.

The essence of education should not be to impede, but as an aid to life. If I think about my own education, I learned nothing as an aid to life anywhere except to read and write and count. Beyond that I found it rather boring year in and year out. I did have the opportunity to have so many wonderful teachers and the ones I remember the most were the ones who gave us the freedom to create (as much as allowed) within those lessons. They were the ones who loved teaching and loved children.

Books never teach experience, teachers can’t teach experience, but life does, and it with this in mind that life should be experienced and not read about. So it is with the essence of education that it is something to be experienced and not as a passive bystander. This experience is remembered through the processes of the sensory profile received from the environment and processed by the brain and imprinted in the memory as learned and never forgotten.

With this in mind, not only the environment plays the most important function in the restoration of natural learning, but so does the recognition of the individual. This not includes the didactic materials available for learning but also includes the nature and predisposition of the teacher. A teacher who is unkind is forever remembered and imprinted on the experience of the child, and so it is that no teacher should enter the profession without being thoroughly researched by the place of employment.

I remember a few of these unkind souls and forever remember their manner and the effect it had on me. I simply did not wish to be there in the presence of these teachers, so went out of my way to stay away. The harsh reality was that I failed to prosper in these classes. One has to ask if this is right and if the essence of education is being missed. Reality and national results speak for themselves. What are we producing in society today? We are in effect only producing human beings who are workers and not free thinkers. Human beings who do not question, reason and think for themselves. This is where education has lead humanity. Is this an aid to life or a long term obstacle that is too far gone to fix in the later stages.

Many parents see this but are also trapped by fear and economics. Rather than question, too many offload the children in these harsh environments so that they can see to their ever increasing economic burdens. You have to question the reality and it often yells at us and we don’t listen until the later years prevail in high school and a whole new set of problems compound.

But, it does not have to be this way. I always say where there is an issue, look at it and try and solve it. You may not get it right the first time, but somewhere along the line of trying a solution will come with your efforts. And so it is with the realisation that education is the cornerstone future of mankind.

Beginning with birth and the creation cycle of life, humankind has devised all kinds of obstacles to the path of education. But I find the biggest obstacle is humankind’s lack of vision and inherent disrespect of nature and one another.

And so it is that this disrespect stems from childhood and the environment and experiences of it on the child.

This is the product of lack, of being placed in an environment that is not conducive to the natural development on a physical and spiritual