The Essay - 3

What should concern prospective professional educators/teachers/ facilitators/ mediators/ gurus(experts/masters) and education theorists is, however, not just the definitions and the points of origin or the goals and aims of education, but the process itself. It is the process that needs to be monitored because it is the part of education that has had least light cast upon it from the detached and metacognitive perspective of thinkers and practitioners who critique and analyse what happens in education. They pay attention to precedents and antecedents, and study whether the new systems put in place of the old have met their objectives and have measurable outcomes that can be quantified as to whether they are more effective than what came before. While this might seem 'simplistic' generalization to some, and indeed it no doubt is if looked at from a positivist point of view, it is written with this end in mind that , to put it 'simply', no amount of attention paid to the process of education can be too little if education is to constantly improve.

The Essay (continued)

The simplest meanings of the words 'science' and 'education' , even after taking into consideration their etymological roots, are as follows:
Science: System of knowledge gained by systematic research and organized into general laws ; specific field of systematic knowledge; skill; proficiency
Education: Learning, instruction, imparting of knowledge, upbringing.
http://www.english-test.net/toeic/vocabulary/meanings/249/toeic-words.php#phpeducation
If science is basically - about - skill and proficiency all of us ought to be or are scientists to some extent. In the same way, all of us are 'partial' educators.

Stroke of luck and continuing frustration

Today I got into our discussion board and read some of the posts before I began getting the usual response of gateway error, server response unauthenticated etc. I am a bit frustrated because I'm unable to post either on the discussion board or on the ppseblog although I tried following Tara's directions. Guess tech has its flip side.


I want to play this by the rules of the game so I am going to stick to the 2000 word limit.

My essay starts like this.
First paragraph.

Horace's dictum that poetry should delight and instruct is where this tesseract would like to start drawing its lines from. If the word 'poetry' is replaced by the word' education', nothing would be lost. Education has to delight and instruction that comes through delight stays with the instructor and the instructed. Delight is one of the root meanings of the word Eden. In the evenings, an unlikely time for 'classes' to be held , the Maker (Vates/Poet) "came down" to have fellowship with mankind in the garden, an unlikely place for 'teaching', and asked him/her/them to give names to all the animals and spent instructive hours that were a delight/Paradise to the participants. Life can be paradise when it is a constant process of education where delight and instruction revolve around each other and are one in a constant harmony that forms a circle whereby instruction is passed on through delight and the delight its mastery gives leads to the desire for more instruction, till gradually the mediator of instruction recedes into the background so that the receptacle can become the new mediator in his/her turn. The father gives way to the son, the mother makes way for the daughter and the teacher gives pride of place to the student . The whole family of mankind yields to the next generation.