   #copyright

Education

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Education

   A kindergarten classroom in Afghanistan.
   Enlarge
   A kindergarten classroom in Afghanistan.

   Education is the process by which an individual is encouraged and
   enabled to fully develop his or her potential; it may also serve the
   purpose of equipping the individual with what is necessary to be a
   productive member of society. Through teaching and learning the
   individual acquires and develops knowledge and skills.

   The term education is often used to refer to formal education (see
   below). However, the word's broader meaning covers a range of
   experiences, from formal learning to the building of understanding and
   knowledge through day to day experiences. Ultimately, all that we
   experience serves as a form of education.

   It is widely accepted that the process of education is lifelong.
   Studies have shown that the child is educated by the experiences it is
   exposed to in the womb even before it is born.

   Individuals receive informal education from a variety of sources.
   Family members, peers, books and mass media have a strong influence on
   the informal education of the individual.

Terminology

   The word education is derived from the Latin educare (with a short u)
   meaning "to raise", "to bring up", "to train", "to rear", via
   "educatio/nis", bringing up, raising. In recent times, there has been a
   return to, an alternative assertion that education derives from a
   different verb: educere (with a long u), meaning "to lead out" or "to
   lead forth". There is an English word from this verb, "eduction":
   drawing out. This is considered by some to be a false etymology, used
   to bolster the theory that a function of education is to develop innate
   abilities and expand horizons.

Philosophy of education

   The philosophy of education is the study of the purpose, nature and
   ideal content of education. Related topics include knowledge itself,
   the nature of the knowing mind and the human subject, problems of
   authority, and the relationship between education and society. At least
   since Rousseau's time, the philosophy of education has been linked to
   theories of developmental psychology and human development.

   Fundamental purposes that have been proposed for education include:
    1. The enterprise of civil society depends on educating young people
       to become responsible, thoughtful and enterprising citizens. This
       is an intricate, challenging task requiring deep understanding of
       ethical principles, moral values, political theory, aesthetics, and
       economics, not to mention an understanding of who children are, in
       themselves and in society.
    2. Progress in every practical field depends on having capacities that
       schooling can educate. Education is thus a means to foster the
       individual's, society's, and even humanity's future development and
       prosperity. Emphasis is often put on economic success in this
       regard.
    3. One's individual development and the capacity to fulfill one's own
       purposes can depend on an adequate preparation in childhood.
       Education can thus attempt to give a firm foundation for the
       achievement of personal fulfillment. The better the foundation that
       is built, the more successful the child will be. Simple basics in
       education can carry a child far.

The nature, origin and scope of knowledge

   A central tenet of education typically includes “the imparting of
   knowledge.” At a very basic level, this purpose ultimately deals with
   the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. The branch of philosophy
   that addresses these and related issues is known as epistemology. This
   area of study often focuses on analyzing the nature and variety of
   knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth and
   belief.

   While the term, knowledge, is often used to convey this general purpose
   of education, it can also be viewed as part of a continuum of knowing
   that ranges from very specific data to the highest levels. Seen in this
   light, the continuum may be thought to consist of a general hierarchy
   of overlapping levels of knowing. Students must be able to connect new
   information to a piece of old information to be better able to learn,
   understand, and retain information. This continuum may include notions
   such as data, information, knowledge, wisdom, and realization.

Psychology of education

   Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational
   settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the
   psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as
   organizations. Although the terms "educational psychology" and "school
   psychology" are often used interchangeably, researchers and theorists
   are likely to be identified as educational psychologists, whereas
   practitioners in schools or school-related settings are identified as
   school psychologists. Educational psychology is concerned with the
   processes of educational attainment in the general population and in
   sub-populations such as gifted children and those with specific
   disabilities.

   Educational psychology can in part be understood through its
   relationship with other disciplines. It is informed primarily by
   psychology, bearing a relationship to that discipline analogous to the
   relationship between medicine and biology. Educational psychology in
   turn informs a wide range of specialities within educational studies,
   including instructional design, educational technology, curriculum
   development, organizational learning, special education and classroom
   management. Educational psychology both draws from and contributes to
   cognitive science and the learning sciences. In universities,
   departments of educational psychology are usually housed within
   faculties of education, possibly accounting for the lack of
   representation of educational psychology content in introductory
   psychology textbooks (Lucas, Blazek, & Raley, 2006).

Academic disciplines

   An academic discipline is a branch of knowledge which is formally
   taught, either at the university, or via some other such method.
   Functionally, disciplines are usually defined and recognized by the
   academic journals in which research is published, and by the learned
   societies to which their practitioners belong.

   Each discipline usually has several sub-disciplines or branches, and
   distinguishing lines are often both arbitrary and ambiguous. Examples
   of broad areas of academic disciplines include the natural sciences,
   mathematics, computer science, social sciences, humanities and applied
   sciences.

Teaching

   It is now widely recognized that the most important factors in any
   teacher's effectiveness are the interaction with students and the
   knowledge and personality of the teacher. The best teachers are able to
   translate information, good judgment, experience, and wisdom into a
   significant knowledge of a subject that is understood and retained by
   the student. Teachers need the ability to understand a subject well
   enough to convey its essence to a new generation of students. The goal
   is to establish a sound knowledge base on which students will be able
   to build as they are exposed to different life experiences. The passing
   of knowledge from generation to generation allows students to grow into
   useful members of society.

   Teachers should have a firm grasp of a given knowledge area so that
   they can pass it on to their students using whatever techniques are
   effective. Different people learn in different ways, and many things
   will have to be explained many different times in many different ways
   before most of the students "get it". Some students, unfortunately,
   never will "get it"--since they are not interested or have not learned
   enough of the foundation knowledge of a given subject to advance to a
   new level. The main role of a teacher is to teach the students the core
   knowledge accumulated over centuries of human experience well enough
   for them to understand and retain enough of this knowledge to be able
   to continue to build on it and, at least in part, understand how the
   world works.

   These ideas reflect a traditional view of teaching in which the
   responsibility for learning is placed on the student. In contemporary
   British pedagogy particularly, the onus lies on the teacher to create
   the appropriate dynamic for effective learning by students of all
   abilities, backgrounds and inclinations. The teacher is more than a
   repository of knowledge: effective teaching draws on a range of skills,
   insights and techniques which afford access to knowledge as well as to
   the development of appropriate skills. Students may not 'get it'
   because their social backgrounds exclude them from curricula which
   presuppose certain cultural and social values. It is the job of
   teachers to understand and identify barriers to learning, to remove
   those barriers and to bring the best out of those they educate.

Schooling

   Schooling occurs when society or a group or an individual sets up a
   curriculum to educate people, usually the young. Schooling can become
   systematic and thorough. Sometimes education systems can be used to
   promote doctrines or ideals as well as knowledge, and this can
   sometimes lead to abuse of the system.

   Life-long or adult education have become widespread in many countries.
   However, education is still seen by many as something aimed at
   children, and adult education is often branded as adult learning or
   lifelong learning.

   Adult education takes on many forms, from formal class-based learning
   to self-directed learning. Lending libraries provide inexpensive
   informal access to books and other self-instructional materials. Many
   adults have also taken advantage of the rise in computer ownership and
   internet access to further their informal education.

Alternative education

   Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or
   educational alternative, describes a number of approaches to teaching
   and learning other than traditional publicly- or privately-run schools.
   These approaches can be applied to all students of all ages, from
   infancy to adulthood, and at all levels of education.

   Educational alternatives are often the result of education reform and
   are rooted in various philosophies that are fundamentally different
   from those of mainstream compulsory education. While some have strong
   political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, others are more
   informal associations of teachers and students who are somehow
   dissatisfied with certain aspects of mainstream education.

   Educational alternatives, which include charter schools, alternative
   schools, independent schools, and home schooling vary widely, but often
   emphasize the value of small class size, close relationships between
   students and teachers, and a sense of community. For some, especially
   in the United States, the term alternative refers to educational
   settings geared towards students whose needs cannot be met in the
   traditional school, such as underachievers who do not qualify for
   special education, rather than to educational alternatives for all
   students.

Technology

   Inexpensive technology is an increasingly influential factor in
   education. Computers and mobile phones are being widely used in
   developed countries to both complement established education practices
   and develop new ways of learning such as online education (a type of
   distance education). This gives students the opportunity to choose what
   they are interested in learning. The proliferation of computers also
   means the increase of programming and blogging. Technology offers
   powerful learning tools that demand new skills and understandings of
   students, including Multimedia literacy, and provides new ways to
   engage students, such as classroom management software. Technology is
   being used more not only in administrative duties in education but also
   in the instruction of students. The use of technologies such as
   PowerPoint and interactive whiteboard is capturing the attention of
   students in the classroom. Technology is also being used in the
   assessment of students. One example is the Audience Response System
   (ARS), which allows immediate feedback tests and classroom discussions.

Challenges

   The goal of education is four-fold: the social purpose, intellectual
   purpose, economic purpose, and political/civic purpose. Current
   education issues include which teaching method(s) are most effective,
   how to determine what knowledge should be taught, which knowledge is
   most relevant, and how well the pupil will retain incoming knowledge.
   Educators such as George Counts and Paulo Freire identified education
   as an inherently political process with inherently political outcomes.
   The challenge of identifying whose ideas are transferred and what goals
   they serve has always stood in the face of formal and informal
   education.

   In addition to the "Three R's", reading, writing, and arithmetic,
   Western primary and secondary schools attempt to teach the basic
   knowledge of history, geography, mathematics (usually including
   calculus and algebra), physics, chemistry and sometimes politics, in
   the hope that students will retain and use this knowledge as they age
   or that the skills acquired will be transferrable. The current
   education system measures competency with tests and assignments and
   then assigns each student a corresponding grade. The grades, usually a
   letter grade or a percentage, are intended to represent the amount of
   all material presented in class that the student understood.

   Educational progressives or advocates of unschooling often believe that
   grades do not necessarily reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a
   student, and that there is an unfortunate lack of youth voice in the
   educational process. Some feel the current grading system lowers
   students' self-confidence, as students may receive poor marks due to
   factors outside their control. Such factors include poverty, child
   abuse, and prejudiced or incompetent teachers.

   By contrast, many advocates of a more traditional or "back to basics"
   approach believe that the direction of reform needs to be the opposite.
   Students are not inspired or challenged to achieve success because of
   the dumbing down of the curriculum and the replacement of the "canon"
   with inferior material. They believe that self-confidence arises not
   from removing hurdles such as grading, but by making them fair and
   encouraging students to gain pride from knowing they can jump over
   these hurdles.

   On the one hand, Albert Einstein, the most famous physicist of the
   twentieth century, who is credited with helping us understand the
   universe better, was not a model school student. He was uninterested in
   what was being taught, and he did not attend classes all the time. On
   the other hand, his gifts eventually shone through and added to the sum
   of human knowledge.

   There are a number of highly controversial issues in education. Should
   some knowledge be forgotten? Should classes be segregated by gender?
   What should be taught, are we better off knowing how to build nuclear
   bombs, or is it best to let such knowledge be forgotten? There are also
   some philosophies, for example Transcendentalism, that would probably
   reject conventional education in the belief that knowledge should be
   gained through purely personal experience.

   A recent book argues that children are being expected to learn too
   much. In Yaneer Bar-Yam's book, Making Things Work, he writes, "There
   is an ongoing tendency to increase the length of textbooks. There are
   various reasons why people want to add to the education of children.
   People who work on education often believe, nobly enough, that the most
   important contribution is to get children to learn more. Publishers
   want to sell new books and adding new material is an important aspect
   of an effective sales pitch". Y. Bar-Yam, Making Things Work,
   NECSI/Knowledge Press, 2005.

   The cost of higher education in developed countries is increasingly
   becoming an issue.

Developing countries

   According to The Borgen Borgen, 115 million children lack access to
   education. In developing countries, the number and seriousness of the
   problems faced are naturally greater. People are sometimes unaware of
   the importance of education, and there is economic pressure from those
   parents who prioritize their children's making money in the short term
   over any long-term benefits of education. Recent studies on child labor
   and poverty have suggested, however, that when poor families reach a
   certain economic threshold where families are able to provide for their
   basic needs, parents return their children to school. This has been
   found to be true, once the threshold has been breached, even if the
   potential economic value of the children's work has increased since
   their return to school. Teachers are often paid less than other similar
   professions.

   A lack of good universities, and a low acceptance rate for good
   universities, is evident in countries with a relatively high population
   density. In some countries, there are uniform, overstructured,
   inflexible centralized programs from a central agency that regulates
   all aspects of education.
     * Due to globalization, increased pressure on students in curricular
       activities
     * Removal of a certain percentage of students for improvisation of
       academics (usually practised in schools, after 10th grade)

   India, however, is starting to develop technologies that will skip land
   based phone and internet lines. Instead, India launched EDUSAT, an
   education satellite that can reach more of the country at a greatly
   reduced cost. There is also an initiative started by a group out of MIT
   and supported by several major corporations to develop a $100 laptop.
   The laptops should be available by late 2006 or 2007. The laptops, sold
   at cost, will enable developing countries to give their children a
   digital education, and to close the digital divide across the world.

   In Africa, NEPAD has launched an " e-school programme" to provide all
   600,000 primary and high schools with computer equipment, learning
   materials and internet access within 10 years.

   Private groups, like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
   are working to give more individuals opportunities to receive education
   in developing countries through such programs as the Perpetual
   Education Fund.

   An International Development Agency project called naabur.com, started
   with the support of American President Bill Clinton, uses the internet
   to allow co-operation by individuals on issues of social development.

Parental involvement

   Parental involvement is an important element in a child's educational
   development. Early and consistent parental involvement in the child's
   life, for example by reading to children at an early age, teaching
   patterns, interpersonal communication skills, exposing them to diverse
   cultures and the community around them, and educating them about a
   healthy lifestyle, is critical. The socialization and academic
   education of a child are aided by the involvement of the student,
   parent(s), extended family, teachers, and others in the community.
   Parent involvement is more than the parent being the field trip helper,
   or the lunch lady. Parents need to be asked about how their child
   learns best. They need to share their career expertise with the
   children. Today's educators need to remember that parents are the
   child's first and foremost teacher; parents, too, are experts, and
   teachers should learn from them.

   Academic achievement and parental involvement are strongly linked in
   the research. Many schools are now beginning parental involvement
   programs in a more organized fashion, in part due to the No Child Left
   Behind legislation from the US Department of Education.

Internationalization

   Education is becoming increasingly international. Not only are the
   materials becoming more influenced by the rich international
   environment, but exchanges among students at all levels are also
   playing an increasingly important role. In Europe, for example, the
   Socrates-Erasmus Programme stimulates exchanges across European
   universities. Also, the Soros Foundation provides many opportunities
   for students from central Asia and eastern Europe. Some scholars argue
   that, regardless of whether one system is considered better or worse
   than another, experiencing a different way of education can often be
   considered to be the most important, enriching element of an
   international learning experience (Dubois et al. 2006).

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
