Education as a Key Issue

Education – A Primary Utility of Our Culture

            Pre school: getting an early start, foundation

            Inventing effective methods of learning, all ages

            Transformative high school education; turning kids on to life-long goals

            Higher education: inventive methods, full access, life-long learning

            Graduate education adaptive to new technologies, problems and careers

            Research, development and technology

            Arts and Culture: connecting the dots (synapses) 

Going back to the Key Issues List I first introduced December 28, 2011, I continue to address these issues one at a time. Each contains several sub topics, and I wish to look at each. Recall, please, that the Key Topics or Issues are really issues we as a nation must manage if we are to successfully bridge our joint past to out joint possible futures. Oh sure, we can put this on automatic pilot and watch what happens, but then we would likely get results we do not want. 

Today is Education – a Primary Utility of Our Culture. It is interesting to think of education as a utility. When I think of it as such, I also get another view of education. So there are at least two ways of encapsulating the topic.

First, education as accumulated experience and learning. This is the growing sense of who I am, who you are, as we gather abilities, talents and the interconnected knowledge that allows us to use those growing talents to accomplish or understanding increasingly complex matters. We can do things now that we couldn’t do before. We can understand things now that we couldn’t before. We can use our experience and knowledge to create new experience and knowledge. Education as living dynamic that supports and fuels our daily activities. A nice view. Pretty common to us all. Needed by each of us, too. 

Second, education as utility. A commodity, a service base, something that is ever present and available to be tapped into at any time. Shared knowledge bases. Active systems providing educational experience and credentials. These are often present in our lives in these forms:

• Schools; grade, middle and high schools
• Colleges and universities
• Vocational training schools of all levels and complexities
• Graduate education programs
• Certification programs for skills, licensed vocations
• Adult re-education programs; career programs to move beyond obsolete jobs
• Employer or professional symposia to update career staff in highly specific job skills, emergent knowledge and changing technologies
• Cultural events and lectures that provide fresh views for the intellect
• Art as experiential education and synaptic development

Pause a few minutes and contemplate the educational activity surrounding us. We can begin to drink in how many different options we have to nurture our minds and senses. Our bodies and minds are complex entities. They grow or seek growth continually. They need nurture, encouragement, and sustenance to become all they can be. Often we are unaware of the seeking our self pursues. At key moments in our lives we intentionally sought education – degrees, certifications, professional licenses. At other times we tackled complex problems in our careers and researched solutions, alternate knowledge, the Internet, library, books and researchers in the field of our endeavor. We went outside ourselves to find answers. And each foray in the field helped us understand more elements of our task, appreciate more complexities of the studied problem, and more possibilities for developing solutions to the problem. That’s education, too. 

This blog is education. Hopefully for the reader, but most certainly for me. As I struggle to understand the universe around me I find it necessary to express myself. To determine the topic that puzzles me, or causes me to wonder. I work to understand it more fully, to find parallels in other avenues of life. Can I find uses of this wonder and thinking that helps me understand yet other areas of life? Can any of this information and logic be useful in managing problems and solutions?  

Becoming aware of questions is the first part of the quest for education. Seeking the answers is the active building of the educational base. Coming to conclusions about this knowledge is an exciting step. But really, the pinnacle delight is implementing the education in the real world. Using it. Seeing how it enables other solutions. Nurtures other people to perform more fully. Wow! That’s exciting! 

I know! I was labeled a nerd through much of my life; still am. But it’s OK. This stuff energizes me. It gives me purpose. And I want it to do the same for you and others. 

What a kick it is to witness people accomplishing things, together and alone. We may labor in solitude at times, but it is in relation to the rest of the world where the meaning really comes alive. And useful! 

If we are each to receive the stimulus and educational experience we need to succeed in life, I believe the systems of transferring knowledge and educational development must be present everywhere for each of us to access. So each of us can achieve the level of understanding and talent development that is within our capability and interest levels.  

This is a utilitarian concept. It is the base of my seeing education as a utility. 

Is our nation making this possible for everyone? Are we shrinking from the big task this truly is? Can we see this question as pivotal in human development of each American? And with it the strength and vitality of our nation’s interest and future?

January 26. 2012