EDUCATION IS THE PROGRESSIVE DISCOVERY OF OUR OWN IGNORANCE

 

The mystic poet Rumi may say: you know all already, it is just about seeing that which was left in the dark.. If ignorance is darkness, then education is the candle. And what does it illuminates? What comes to light? Our own knowledge that was hidden from us!

unless one ignites matchstick through a mechanical stroke against a rough surface, it remains as is. The knowledge of chemical reactions remain hidden as ignorance. Education ignites our mind and gives us the wings of fire as A P J Abdul Kalam Azad would lovingly say to children

When Albert Einstein was sitting at his desk in patent office at Bern and was gazing out his window, he performed his famous mind experiment. He thought what will happen if he walks along the beam of light coming from the clock tower at the same speed. He was stunned to realise that time will not change for him and the whole beam of light will be like a photograph. Was this knowledge new to mankind? What got illuminated by this seemingly simple experiment was a fact that was there with the universe from the very beginning .

In the famous story “allegory of the cave ” given by plato . the light of   outside world or fire is used as metaphor for enlightenment and recognition of our ignorance , the process of coming out and progressing into outside world is getting educated .

Earlier people used to consume whatever they produce and did no savings .. they were ignornt of storing essential commodities for future . but they suffered from hunger and got educated of the need of storage . similarly the ignorant people spending their earnings worthlessly  realised saving money during covid 19

Education is a progressive process as Education has an enabling role. It enables us to know what we know in a better way and know what we can know by our mental prowessEducation shines the light on different centers of darkness Each new generation has the privilege to stand on a tall generation and sees a little farther than the previous generation.

 If painters painstakingly sketched the surface of moon using telescope 200 years back, today we take high resolution photographs almost every day. If calligraphers copied numerous copies of books all their lives few centuries back, today fast lazer printer and publishing houses have flooded the market with numerous books in fine print

Nature also teaches us that education is setep by step realisation of our ignorance as :  “A pearl is buried deep into sand . with the removal of subsequent layers of sand , numerous shells and stone appear until we reach the pearl”.

 The layers of sand in the above lines are the curtain of ignorance which makes the truth buried as pearl . truth is always present in us but our ignorance puts a shadow on it . it is education which connects us to the truth by removing the ignorance layer by layer

Ours’ is population of over 7 billion men and women and we surely are not a monolith. We all live in our own wells. Vivekanand asked us to come out these wells and see the ocean of knowledge. It is the long rope of education that can pull us out from these wells of our creation.

Right knowledge and right perception is what a Buddhist sage tries to meditate for whole his life. It is the wrong perception because of ignorance that is seen as the root cause of all suffering and strife. Those who are illuminated and Those whose mind sees beyond the dark and light skins of men, speak of equality

We stopped child marriages as earlier we were ignorant but now educated

Earlier people thought of only horses hat can run fast . they were ignorant of wheels and engines . but car develpoed

At this point, it should be made clear that being educated might have to do nothing with school or college degrees. A civilised America can drop bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and an uncivilised Bushman can save the life of a dying tourist in the jungles of Kalahari.

Education can come from observation. Yes, schooling is very important, but ethical and moral values can be inculcated through family. Family, thus is accepted as the first school of a child .