Definition of Education

by Don Berg

The definition of education in common usage, that education is merely the delivery of knowledge, skills and information from teachers to students, is inadequate to capture what is really important about being and becoming educated.

The proper definition is basically the process of becoming an educated person, but that begs the question of what counts as an educated person.

Being an educated person means you have access to optimal states of mind regardless of the situation you are in.

You are able to perceive accurately, think clearly and act effectively to achieve self-selected goals and aspirations.

Education, therefore, is more properly defined as a process of cognitive cartography, mapping your experiences and finding a variety of reliable routes to optimal states of mind when you find yourself in non-optimal states.

In this essay I am going to criticize the common definition, elaborate on my definition, and finally, make three recommendations for teachers based on my definition of education.

The idea that the definition of education is the delivery of knowledge, skills and information from teachers to students is misguided.

While this definition of education is partly true it is grossly inadequate and is probably the fundamental source of the vast tragedy of "accountability" which treats arbitrarily inadequate results on irrelevant tests as proof that some school communities need to be punished.

The logic of "accountability" in this instance is taken to be a literal "accounting" of units of knowledge and information through highly orchestrated student performances of test taking skills.

This is the same kind of literalism that causes absurd behavior in religious communities, too. (At least, in education the fundamentalists are only fiscally killing their enemies and not literally.)

Two Problems With the Traditional Definition of Education as Delivery

There are two main problems with this definition of education.

First, the definition of education using the delivery metaphor is too often taken to be literally true.

Knowledge, skills, and information, as we mean these terms in the field of education, are not literal units.

In computer science and telecommunications they deal with literal units of information in the form of electrical pulses that can be observed in a variety of ways.

In education we are dealing with entire realms and fields of both worldly phenomena and uniquely human narratives that have no literal, physical existence.

We use the term "unit" as a convenient way to organize our thoughts about a complex set of phenomena that is incomprehensible without this metaphor.

What we know from the findings of cognitive sciences is that even science and mathematics use metaphors to develop ideas about complex and otherwise incomprehensible phenomena.

If even our deepest scientific and mathematical understandings of the physical, literal world are based on metaphors, then it is neither surprising nor unusual to use metaphors in our defintion of education. (see Philosophy in the Flesh, Lakoff & Johnson, Basic Books 1999, and Lakoff & Nunez, Where Mathematics Comes From, Basic Books 2000)

But it is a problem to take a metaphor literally.

What we learn from this insight into how we understand the world is that our understandings of anything complex, especially something as vastly complex as education, are based on metaphors and the challenge is to figure out which of the metaphors are most useful for creating the right outcomes.

An Educated Person

The second problem with this definition of education is that it is pathetically inadequate for describing what is most important about both the process of becoming, and the results of being, an educated person.

Whenever I have pushed people to really delve into what they mean when they talk about a person being educated they quickly abandon the notion that educated people have a greater quantity of information or that they have the traditional evidence of instructional bookkeeping like diplomas, degrees, certificates, etc.

While it is true that the educated person needs information, an educated person is not dependent on the information they have stored in their heads, because they have the ability to find information, create knowledge, and develop skills when necessary.

Since delivery requires both a person who delivers and a person who accepts delivery, then the delivery model also inherently defines education as an interaction between a teacher and a student, but, achieving the status of being educated does not always require a teacher.

The delivery model does not make any meaningful reference to the qualities of an educated person and the resulting system of schooling based on that definition of education has proven to be a highly unreliable producer of educated people.

What truly makes a person educated is that they are able to perceive accurately, think clearly, and act effectively according to self-defined goals and aspirations.

An educated person is also respectful of others regardless of their power and status, responsible for the results of their actions, and resourceful at getting what they need, both, personally and for their family, organization, and /or society.

From this conception of an educated person we can approach a proper definition of education.

A Proper Definition of Education

The common definition of education is simply wrong when you consider how education actually occurs.

A proper definition of education will have to cover these four important aspects of how humans become educated:

1.       The necessity of having and manipulating knowledge, skills and information

2.       The helpfulness of teachers, without requiring them

3.       The constant need to see through the inherent illusions that arise from our unconscious thought processes, and

4.       Our ability to influence our states of mind

These four criteria suggest defining education as a process of cognitive cartography.

Cognitive Cartography Definition of Education

What all learners are doing is developing a map of reliable methods of getting from negative states of mind to at lease neutral but preferably positive states of mind.

The units of knowledge skills and information are points on the map, but what makes the map useful are accurate portrayals of the relationships between the points and how those points can be used to arrive at the desired states of mind.

Let's go through an example of a literal map process before we explore the metaphorical mapping.

Pretend you are here with me here in Portland, Oregon, and you want to get to Los Angeles, California.

I make two points on a piece of paper then label them Portland and Los Angeles, but, having given you two points of information is totally useless, so far.

The two points can only become a map after I depict actual relationships between the two points, such as indicating which way is North and then adding a connection between the points, such as highways, trail systems, or public transportation options like buses, trains or airplanes.

But even that is of limited use because if you do not know how you relate to the places I have already drawn, then the information is still useless.

In order for the map to become useful, you have to know where you are and how your position relates to the points and lines on the map.

If I do an adequate job of depicting the relationships between you and 1) your current location, 2) at least one of the transportation options you have available to you, and 3) your destination then you should be able to accomplish your goal of getting to Los Angeles.

If I do not do an adequate job then you still might get to Los Angeles if you happen to find other methods of navigation other than the useless map I provided you with.

All of this is true in education.

"Units" are useless until 1) they are effectively related to each other, 2) the depicted relations reflect modes of travel that are actually available to the traveler, and 3) the person with the original intention to travel can fit themselves into that particular picture of the world in a way the gets them where they want to be.

Remember, the key quality of an educated person is the ability to move from negative states of mind to positive states of mind.

Positive states of mind are objectively the most productive states to be in and also provide the best quality of life, as well.

Thus, moving from one state of mind to another is the most elementary lesson that can be taught.

Navigating the Human Mind

The world that we are properly concerned with in elementary education is the human mind.

Children need to learn to navigate the terrain of their own minds so that they can effectively navigate the real world that confronts that mind with all the challenges of earthly human existence.

Therefore, what is elementary in elementary school is gaining control over your own behavior and learning to coordinate your behavior with others.

The most fundamental lesson of elementary school is governance of behavior, our own and other people's.

The mastery of our own individual behavior requires us to realize that just because we think something does not make it so.

Our minds, especially when we are children, are highly productive illusion machines.

Young children live in a magical realm in which thinking makes things happen.

The popular success of The Secret, a motion picture length infomercial on the power of positive thinking, shows that magical thinking is not limited to children.

The task of becoming an adult is mastering the process of disillusionment, the process of uncovering mistaken or ineffective thought patterns.

By the time children are of school age they have a lot of ideas based on a combination of the way their brains were built and how their experiences have shaped that building process.

Across our entire lifespan we humans build up a vast repertoire of concepts, mostly unconscious concepts, about both the world and our own minds.

Unfortunately most of those concepts are basically wrong except for accomplishing the simplest childish intentions.

The eternal moral challenge of living as a responsible adult is to persistently inquire into how our concepts mislead us into causing our own and other people's suffering.

The way that we rise to meet this moral challenge is by examining how our own mind deceives us, through practicing empathy for the states of mind we cause in other people by our actions, and actively taking responsibility for preventing and alleviating suffering in every way we can.

Magical thinking and ignoring the results of our actions based on the goodness of our intentions is a perpetual challenge.

If we can ensure that everyone is capable of optimizing their own state of mind and assisting other's to optimize theirs, then everyone will have maximum opportunity for enjoying life and being productive.

Consistent attainment of positive states of mind is better known as having a good attitude (you were probably wondering when attitude would come in.)

Thus if everyone can achieve a good attitude and help others do the same then the world will be a better place.

Thus education as I've defined it implies a process of attaining and assisting others to attain a good attitude that enables a person to perceive accurately, think clearly, and act effectively according to self-selected goals and it is fundamentally about attitude no matter what age or level of schooling you are concerned with.

Three Recommendations Based on My Definition of Education

There are three recommendations for teachers (meaning everyone who is interested in catalyzing learning in their students or children and not just delivering units) that are elaborated on throughout this site and follow from the cognitive cartography definition of education.

First, teach kids attitude first.

Second, utilize every resource you have to immerse your students in being respectful of each other as they learn to govern their own and other people's behavior.

Third, use an adaptive curriculum to make sure that whatever situation you find yourself in will anticipate the needs of your students.

The first and second are partly unavoidable.

You are already teaching attitude and immersing your students in some form of governance, even if you don't know you are.

What I am suggesting is that you stop doing it on accident and start doing it on purpose.

These recommendations are going to be frustrating to teachers who were looking for what they should do when they get in front of a classroom full of kids on Monday morning.

The problem is that making a shift in your definition of education is a complex process that involves changing more than just your own mind, therefore the recommendations I make are more about changing cultures than about changing individual minds.

Education is Free With This Definition

The wonderful irony of real education is that it is essentially free.

My definition of education could be boiled down to the mapping of access to optimal states of mind.

The result is an educated person, a person who is able to perceive accurately, think clearly, and act effectively on self-selected goals and aspirations.

The process of becoming educated requires a practice of persistent disillusionment; a consistent method for having an on-going dialog between the world and your mind to constantly revise your concepts of what is really going on.

Our moral responsibility as educators is to align the bio-, psycho-, communo-, socio- and eco-spheres as best we can to assist our students (and ourselves) with this on-going mapping project.

And aligning all those spheres is a cultural project not an individual one.

Everything about this process has been available to human kind as long as we have been human.

Only recently have we become aware that this is true.

There is not a single technology high or low that is necessary to accomplish this, but just about every technology both high and low can help us educate ourselves and everyone of our students, if we use them with the right attitude.

Other Definitions of Education

There are other definitions of education that use other metaphors.

The core values that are important to me in defining education are providing a safe and empowering environment for children that nurtures them with opportunities for fulfillment.

The result of this set of priorities is the development of strong kids who are optimally capable of living a life that contributes to their family and community as well as being very resilient in the face of adversity.

This is a contrast with the values of some who believe that strengthening a child's will and ability to withstand adversity is a higher priority than nurturing the child.

The important test of whether a definition of education is one that is acceptable to me is how it is used to express the core values of safety and nurturance.

There are a variety of metaphors, such as education as gardening or a factory, and my test of their appropriateness is whether they can express the values I hold dear.

The factory metaphor definition of education that makes the delivery of units central to all the activities that occur in school inherently undermines nurturing relationships in schools therefore it fails my test of adequacy.

Education defined using a gardening metaphor is ambiguous since the majority of the cultivation of plants today occurs on factory farms, but if the metaphor is painted as a personal relationship between the gardener and the plant, then it might work.

Cognitive cartography is the best metaphor to use in defining education since it enables the conversation about education to be guided by unconscious images that better reflect the reality of learning and teaching.