WHAT IS EDUCATION?

The word “education” can take a variety of meanings. To some, receiving a highschool or college diploma is the ultimate mark of being educated, while others take a different view. What does it mean to you personally to be educated?

Jalal SADEK, Terminale

Most people equate education to obtaining a degree from high school or college. This is a legitimate claim but it is not sufficient. Not all college degree holders are well-educated, some are just certified. In my experience, one’s education is a lifelong process. For me, becoming educated is asking lots of questions and learning how to find the answers, reading widely about what is going on in my community, country and the world, traveling as much as I can and immersing myself in a new culture, trying new things, meeting new people and listening to their views and gaining different perspectives. For me, education is all about learning how to learn; there is no end destination in education; it is a never-ending journey. 

So far, I have been lucky to experience great learning possibilities first hand during my extensive tennis-related travels to far places: from Vietnam to Kazakhstan and many other countries in Eastern, Central, and Western Asia. It has been very enriching learning about different cultures, eating different cuisines and meeting people my age with different stories to tell. 

Lody KHAIRALLAH, Terminale

In today’s world, where a something we only saw in movies became real, the notion of “surviving” is being taken more seriously. If a pandemic could happen in our advanced days, nothing is stopping an apocalyptic event from happening too. Is being “educated” enough to survive such situations?

Being “educated” has an important role to play in someone’s survival during an apocalyptic event or an epidemic, simply because education means you’ve learnt a thing or two about what you are facing. Take for example the current situation: we are in the middle of an epidemic and being educated about the virus and how it spreads has helped slow down its spreading. But this example has a negative side to it too, because even educated people who know about the dangers of Covid-19 do not respect the sanitary guidelines. I am, myself, one of these people, because at New Year’s Eve, countless parties were hosted at Faraya and I even went to one of them. No one was wearing a mask and no one was “social distancing”. Am I not educated? False, I am, I’ve spent at least 15 years in educational institutions and I am well aware of the dangers of Covid-19, but it didn’t stop me from partying alongside a big crowd.

Being educated, then, is not enough to survive an apocalyptic event or an epidemic, especially in the younger crowd where it’s all about living “right now” and having fun “while we can”.

But being educated is not only about going to school and reading, it’s also about knowing how to fend for yourself in delicate situations, such as an apocalyptic event: knowing about plants and their benefits, where to find water, how to build a cabin… those are all matters we do not learn at school, but are still valuable and of great importance in case of an apocalyptic event where the resources get stark and the comfort minimal.

I guess it all depends on what you think education is. We have all watched at least once on Youtube this Cambodian guy who digs the ground and builds amazing, functional structures. He lives off what the forest gives him. Does he know about the mitochondria or René Descartes? No. Does he have a better chance at surviving an apocalyptic event than most of “educated” students, me included? Yes.

To sum it all, education does play an important role in one’s surviving an unfortunate event, even though being educated doesn’t stop people from acting mindlessly and foolishly. Add to this the fact that knowing the basic survival skills is the education everyone needs to be able to survive.