What Is Education?
In a recent newsletter, Greg Reibman of the Charles River Chamber of Commerce wrote a diatribe against the new head of the largest Massachusetts teachers union Max Page, because Page declared the function of the schools is not just working towards better MCAS scores, which has been the subject of controversy, and not just working on skills that will get students into college or into jobs. I believe that Reibman's point was two-fold: one was to emphasize that employers are finding it difficult to find employees with strong basic reading and math skills, and that public schools should prepare students for college that statistically places these students in higher wage earning categories. This led me to wonder about education in general. Doesn't it seem obvious that the goal of schools should be to educate our children? Then this leads to the discussion, what is education?
Here are the three first definitions of "education" from education.com:
the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life
the act or process of imparting or acquiring particular knowledge or skills, as for a profession.
a degree, level, or kind of schooling:
Being an educator, I believe in the first definition above as the truest. For me there is a difficulty in thinking that we should only lean towards one profession or lean towards skills that are easily assessed by multiple choice questions. If the first definition is achieved through true learning in an institutional setting, then the second (acquiring knowledge or skills for a profession) is achieved by having obtained these more powerful life skills of reasoning, judgment, process of acquiring knowledge from the first definition.
A very well known TED-talk is the one about "Grit" by Angela Duckworth. Among our Suzuki community we espouse the concept of a growth mindset (read Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck) where sticking with something, struggling, attempting and failing, are part of the learning path. Students who learn by ear must struggle for a while to find the right notes. We also encourage Suzuki piano students to discover what chords fit the melody, by trial and error. There is some tendancy to want to get to the "correct" notes by going directly to the Suzuki book to read the notes. This is a different pedagogic approach from using one's ear: experimenting with notes through trial and error, discovering the visual pattern of the fingers, and gradually learning that how an interval sounds (smaller or larger) is also how the fingers will feel when placed on the notes. The concepts of fingering are discovered through this trial and error, and if a student is truly listening to the recordings and to his own practice, these melodies become more easily transformed from when they hear it, when they can sing it, and then how to play it. It takes some grit, and it takes some tenacity.
These are important skills in accomplishing any task in life and in any profession. Learning to problem solve and achieving a desired, high quality result, is the constant practice of the Suzuki student. We believe this and it is a way to develop a child's confidence in their own problem solving abilities. This is the education we bring through our Suzuki program.
Sachiko
