week 1

"The purpose of education is to show a person how to define oneself authentically and spontaneously in relation to one's world-- not to impose a prefabricated definition of the world, still less an arbitrary definition of oneself." - Thomas Merton, Reader p. 2

"The function of a school is, then, first of all to help the student discover oneself: to recognize oneself, and to identify who it is that chooses" -Thomas Merton, Reader p. 2

In lecture on Friday 2/5, we first discussed education, defining in different ways. I wrote one definition from I think Mya Scarlatto that I particularly liked: "Not only is education practical in that it provides us with useful life skills, but it makes our lives more meaningful as it helps us to analyze and learn from our existence and better our futures." As a class, we basically said education is to prepare us for life's obstacles, jobs, etc. and to prepare us to be able to better our futures either through personal satisfaction of knowledge or having the skills to improve one's career.

This thinking of education was fine and dandy, but then Max threw us for a loop and said, "What is schooling?" Ah... schooling and education are different. This concept was not unfamiliar to me, but I suppose I had not separated the two before. According to our class, in our society school is the means of earning and education while experiencing socialization with a variety of people. This got me thinking: is school more about education or socialization? I'd say it is a mix of both, allowing students to, as Merton says, "discover oneself." So what about homeschooling? The social aspect is lacking in that form of education. Can homeschooled children fully "discover" themselves? Sure they can find what academic field they like or find interesting, but they are certainly at a disadvantage when discovering what kind of person they are in relation to others. Granted, there is usually a beneficial reason for students to be homeschooled, but I believe the homeschooled children need to spend some time in schools, even if it is for "elective" subjects like music, art, or physical education. They need to have the opportunity to learn about themselves while getting to know and observing others.

I placed the quotes at the top of the page to give focus to education and schooling as separate ideas. Even though Merton says they are both about discovering oneself, I think that the level of discovery or the process of discovery is very different in both due to the socialization element.