THE CONCEPT "EDUCATION"
The defnitions of education are varied and many; but in this section
we are not mainly concerned with detinitions as such; rather our concern is the what constitutes education and what does it mean to say one is
ducated. What are the distinguishing marks between one who is educated
and one who is not
Itis commonly construed that "going to school" means the same thing
as being "educated".It is perhaps on this score that the man in the street
ends to think and equate "schooling" with "education"
This, too, may account tor the reason why if one goes to a village and demands to have a meeting with the "educated" members of the village, the people who will respond to such an invitation would be people who must have attended one level of schooling or the other. It would seem strange to see in such a gathering one who had never "seen" the four walls of a school. As we shall see later, going to school could be part of education but it is not the whole
f education. To see or conceive education in terms of going to school is rather narrow. Education is a wider concept. It includes schooling which is
ormation or education that takes place in a tormal setting in a specialised
lace called the school, with a systematic body of knowledge called the curriculum, that is being directed by a specialist known as the teacher
Sesides formal education (schooling) there are also informal and non-formal Education.
But the question what is education has not been sufficiently answered
y the above approach and it is perhaps for this reason that some philosophers think that it is better to approach the issue from the etymological posture.
THE ETYMOLOGICAL DEFINITION
Again taking off from this angle, there are two oPposing camps, tor
one, education is said to be derived from the Latin word educere meaning
to tead out or bring out; and for the other, education is derived from the
Laun root educare meaning to form or train. This difference and distincaon
as led to a series of controversies among those who are interested n
education. For the former, there has developeda system of belief and cluster
of claims that the learner has innate ideas which only need to be stimulated
or squeezed out by the educator; while for the latter, a system of thougnt
and aims is developed that contend that the learner does not possess innate ideas, but rather the mind of the learner is blank, a sort of tabula rasa in which external objects make impressions on the mind for the formation of knowledge. Hence the task of education is formation in outlook!
R.S. Peters (23) in analysing the concept "education" contends that it is
not easy to define education as it is to define geometry or triangle. Education,
he feels, forms a tamily of ideas that is united by a complicated network of Similarities.
Education, just like gardening, 1s a polymorphous concept. What does
it mean to say that a concept is polymorphous Let us consider the case of the process of gardening. When I am digging or pruning or weeding or
sowing, in each and every case what l am doing can legitimately be described
as gardening. So if one says "he was pruning or weeding and not gardening"such a pronouncement would not make sense for the simple reason that "gardening" is a generic term under which fall terms for particular gardening activities, namely, weeding, pruning and so on. So it is with education. It is on this ground that Peters (24) thinks that it would be a
mistake to think of educating as the name of one and only one particular
such a pronouncement would not make sense for the simple reason that
activity. Peters further puts forward three criteria for education.
Education And Philosophy
Another way in which education is looked at by Peters (30) is to see it
from the view point of a task achievement word in which the end product
of the task of educating, is the educated man. Who then is an educated
man? Summarising Peters' conception of the educated man, Akinpelu (181)
enunciates the following as important: That being educated involves:
Being initiated into a mode of thought or activity that is considered
worthwhile or desirable for itself and perhaps useful for other extrinsic ends.
Possessing some body of knowledge or skill in a narrow specialized
area, but more still a broad-based general knowledge.
Having 'cognitive perspective" of the activity; by which Peters means
having some kind of conceptual scheme knowing the principles and
standards expected in it, the structure and organisation of the field and
the characteristic method of reasoning and inquiry in the activity.
Caring about the activity as an object of pursuit or being committed to
it sufficiently to expend efforts and energy to deepen his interest in it
and advance its standard; and
Having an inside knowledge or being on the inside track of the
discipline, so as to fully understand it and work out its relationship
with other disciplines.
