Education  Sets You Free

 Philosophy of Education

Education leads to awareness.  Awareness leads to change.  Change leads to growth.  Growth leads to greater self-confidence, to greater self-esteem, and to maturity.  This is the cycle of education.

There are hundreds of facets to our character. Each facet is formed by a belief that we hold to be a fact, the truth.  Each time we learn something new or become aware of other facts, the facts we hold as truth become more entrenched or are replaced by new beliefs.  When we accept a new belief, a new fact, we change.  When we change by getting closer to the truth, we grow.  Our self-esteem grows from the realization.  Our confidence grows.  We become more mature.  We are better suited to face the challenges of life.

Getting to the truth is a learning experience a little bit like peeling an onion.  The removal of each layer leads us to a more poignant purer part of the same onion, closer to the core.  Education peels away the layers in our perceptions that disguise the truth in its absolute form.  But at each layer some composite part of the truth exists.  Education strips away the layers and peels away untruths and myths.

Education raises our awareness. 

Purpose of Education

Change can result from data received from any of the twelve ways in which our lives are shaped. A study on the effects of eating a piece of chocolate cake may lead to a change in eating habits.  New data on the effects of doing sit-ups may lead to a change in exercise habits.  An oil crisis may cause a change in the school calendar, which causes a change in student study habits.  The purchase of a summer cottage changes the buyer's perception of freedom.    

At one time or another we all search to change one facet or another of our lives.  One may search for knowledge to overcome an allergy, or search for knowledge to improve one's sleep, or search for a new career opportunity.  With every search comes an increase in awareness.  With an increase in awareness comes change in beliefs and in behavior.

When an increase in awareness leads to a positive change, the purpose of education is satisfied. When a person grows and matures, the quality of life improves for that person and for all the people around.  We grow and we are able to peel away the facade.  More of the real person is allowed to surface.

  Raising Our Awareness

Dr. Robert Anthony defines awareness in the following manner, "Your awareness can be defined as the clarity with which you consciously and unconsciously perceive and understand everything that affects your life.  It is the sum total of your experiences encompassing conditioning, knowledge, intellect, intuition, instinct, and all that you perceive through the five senses.  Your present level of awareness indicates your moods, attitudes, emotional reactions, prejudices, habits, desires, anxieties, fears, aspirations and goals."

The challenge in education is to take the courses that will provide us with the opportunity to evaluate our current perceptions in the light of new facts, new truths from a new social setting in a new environment.  Truths can stand the test only if they hold firm across several environments.  Once such a truth stands the test, it becomes a rock in our foundation.

When awareness increases in any direction, a change will take place.  The change can be very subtle.  A new bit of information stored in the mind is as much a change as a new bit of data entered into computer memory.  Decisions based on the group of facts with which that bit is a part will be modified because of that new bit.

Education clears us to see more light

Everyone, therefore, depending on their exposure to new facts, is going through change on a consistent basis.  When NASA shoots a spacecraft to photograph the moon, the new awareness of the moon changes the database of information about the universe and the new information affects our thinking and decisions about future space exploration.  

Power of Education

If we are totally successful, education will lead us to truth in its absolute form.  At its absolute, truth puts us in complete harmony with all natural universal law and allows us to draw on the natural universal energy.  The practical results in our life are a high level of confidence with high self-esteem, which allows us to be self-sufficient.  

Education starts from the first day out of the womb.  Everything that we begin to sense and hear and feel begins to form into beliefs that we hold.  We hold and rub a blanket and translate that action into a belief about blankets, cloth, softness, and comfort. Our learning increases in degree of sophistication throughout our lives.  The more mature, the more aware, the truer our perceptions, the greater our wisdom.

In our early years our perceptions and awareness and, therefore, the majority of the beliefs we hold come from our parents.  They are the source of our truths.  The ease of our progress is dependent on the maturity of their perceptions.  As our personality is formed, our view of reality is colored by our biological and environmental characteristics.  The individuality of these traits paints a different view of reality for each of us.  The same facts revealed to two people will lead to two different views of the same reality.  As we proceed through the stages of pre-school, grammar school, high school, and college we form a myriad of beliefs carved from a myriad of influences.  Change and growth are relatively rapid. Our beliefs, having been composed freely and easily from the experience of others, are basically the needs of the majority in society.  Our own needs, our inner needs have not, for the most part, been addressed. The opportunity to examine our beliefs in terms of our own needs occurs after our formal education.

Education, through the formal years, is basically education through our five senses.  Education, through our adult years, begins to add elements of intellect and intuition.

When we pass into our mid-twenties it is usually a time to begin again.  Adulthood provides greater freedom to peel more layers away, to increase awareness in areas previously closed. 

At some point education becomes completely personal.  We begin to address the urgings from within that deal with our destiny.  We begin to address the urgings from within that ask who are we and what do we want to do.  The search through education takes many forms.  It can be in the form of individual research or it can come from the support of a larger peer group.  Peer support groups in our culture include religious organizations, social clubs, and work related organizations.

Keep your path clear and filled with beauty.

In our search for answers people select from a large variety of courses.  They all in their own way help us determine who we are and what we do.  Each course taken or each seminar attended or research completed fills in some of the blanks that define who we are and what we do.  Each educational block is like a letter in our own crossword puzzle that eventually reveals our identity.  The more blanks that are filled, the clearer is the picture called destiny.  Whatever the journey, one of the goals of education is the same.  That goal is self-esteem.  Self-esteem that fills us with joy and well being while we comfort, prod, and teach  others who  are still on their journey.  Only the person making the journey can determine the level of self-esteem.  Only the person making the journey can identify every blank that must still be filled.