The Meaning of Education

The word education is linguistically derived from the third person verb to educate, which means to establish, to feed, to be promoted and to fringe. This meaning applies on both physical and spiritual cases of the learners and that’s because the human is made of a rational and soft spirit and a thick composed body, feeding and taking care of the body to have harmony with the laws of nature within the sport, hygiene, protection from pollution rules, on all levels, is the subject of physical education. Cultivating  the character and taming the wild part with good habits and moderate traditions and by tending the mind and by the gradual progress in the mental care from one field of knowledge to a more sophisticated one till attaining the student to realize the complete abstract and laws which rule the outcome of beings in the subject of educating the rational soul.

 According to the Greek philosopher Plato, education means to seek practically and theoretically to achieve equilibrium between the variety of individual’s spiritual and physical force which means the equilibrium between instincts, emotions and mind. This equilibrium can’t be as portions, but as instinct guided by emotions, and emotions guided by the mind because  happiness, in Plato’s’ opinion, is the awareness of the individual human mind for the complete abstracts, that is the ideals existed in the abstract world that’s called the ideal world. As for Aristotle, Education is the gradual progress in educating the individual, leading him to understand the logic that teaches us to comprehend the first principles which, if we achieve it, we might comprehend another by the same analogy. He also points out that the human soul comes as a white sheet, with absolutely no innate knowledge but it is distinguished from the other animal souls since it is aware of the strength, that by it, can achieve knowledge and since man was, according to Aristotle, an innate social being, that the family was in his opinion the first basic kernel to build the society, he also considers that the binding of the individual  with the family is an essential bond and he builds the basic education starting from his family because his relation with the state has lots of dependency.

From the contemporary, Phrenee’ Opier defines education by saying that it is the sentence of deeds and impacts that a human being causes by his will to affect another.

Proper education is a continuous everlasting life time process. It is said that during adulthood the educator is both the school and the family, so education is instructing and taming and after adulthood the educator is life , which means that education becomes a series of theoretical and practical experiences and applications as well.

As for the thinker Kamal Junublat, he defined education by saying: in our opinion education means the interaction of two manners. One aims to forge , organize and fill up the mind with necessary information. The second manner tends to cultivate emotions and behavior. Human can’t be complete or in other words oriented towards perfection unless an outer and concealed harmony happens between heart and mind.”

As for my personal humble opinion in the subject of education, it is that there is a pyramid of three concerns: family, school and life.

Contributed in producing the text Kamal Sari al Deen

Edited  in 1432 H. 2011 A.D  on 20/5/2011

 Twaheed guidance                   

Issued  from the Office of Druze Sheikhdom