Koinonia: The meaning, purpose of education

This is the time of year when public school begins. Most education programs begin in the fall. Students and teachers, professors and college students return to the new academic year. It is a time of year that is exciting for some, and others dread the return to school.

What drives our perspective of how we look at education? In my own experience I can say there was a time when education seemed like just something to fill our time. The connection to everyday life wasn’t always clear. Perhaps I wasn’t paying attention to how my teachers were connecting it to the real world, or maybe there was no attempt to do so. Regardless, I know that when I was able to see the importance of something, it made it much easier and more desirable to learn.

It wasn’t until my later years in college that I really had a thirst for knowledge and wanted to understand everything about what I was studying. I was no longer just looking for a good grade, instead, I wanted to understand the concepts that were presented. Part of me wonders if I missed out on a lot of fascinating information because of a lack of interest. If I had been trained to wonder and seek answers to questions would that have made me more motivated to learn? It is hard to say how young students gain a real desire to learn and explore. So often we teach our students to test well, to finish their homework, or simply to pass a class. We aren’t always focused on developing a sense of exploration.

It is really a different method of teaching. One that is perhaps more difficult to accomplish because for a teacher with a large class, it is difficult to be attentive to all the different ways their students are interacting with the material. However, if we want to develop the minds of our young, we should be interested in fostering a thirst for learning, for gaining understanding, for asking questions. If we teach someone to have that deeper and broader perspective to learning, this will remain with them for their whole lives.

When we limit education to simply getting the right answer, and getting a good grade, we limit their learning. Unfortunately, this can also create a temptation for academic dishonesty. The pressure to perform can be a greater motivation then infusing a sense of wonder and exploration. There are of course some personalities that will tend to be more geared to exploration and discovery and creativity, while others tend to be more task oriented. We need both, but I wonder sometimes whether we aren’t losing our ability to engage students in the art of learning rather then just creating hoops to jump through and boxes to check.

What is our education system producing? I find teaching much more rewarding when students have questions and want to understand the answer. When they just want a stock answer, it makes learning and teaching pretty boring.

When it comes to sharing the Christian faith, I think it is very important to help people engage the desires of their hearts, and the questions that they are asking. If we simply give them things to memorize or bible verses to copy, are we helping them engage in a real relationship with God and his church? When someone is excited to learn, I think they are also much more open to the Christian faith. When they have a wonder and a desire to probe for more complex answers, I believe they find more meaning in the religious questions of our day.

When you look at your own path of education. What do you see? Were you taught to explore, or to merely get correct answers? Were you encouraged to ask questions that naturally progressed from your own curiosity, or where you taught to just do enough to get by? Perhaps how we have been educated has a lot to do with how open we are to life’s bigger and more interesting questions. I hope we as a society can recapture the true meaning and purpose of education.