Meaning of Education

I recently read an article on the etymology of education. It was interesting enough that I Tweeted a link. There was a bit of a problem with this. The article tends to contradict my use of the term. It's probably best that I explain my views on this word. First, I should probably provide some background on what I know about the word and how it's typically used.

Etymology

Apparently, education was derived from two different words. One means to mold and the other means to draw out. Although these meanings seem contradictory, they both imply an external influence on the recipient of an education. For the schools, molding makes far more sense than drawing out.

Etymology typically only provides a snapshot of a word's history. I can only find the immediate predecessor prior to becoming a part of the English language and no information on how the word has evolved since we first started using it. One thing that I know for certain is that the meaning of the word diverged into two very different meanings.

Dictionaries

Etymology is no replacement for a definition. Although many dictionaries provide more than two definitions, they all seem to relate to two core meanings, mental development and schooling.

Even dictionaries have their shortcomings. People should try to adhere to correct usage of words, but the specifics of what a word means can vary from person to person. For example, intelligent generally refers to someone with mental strengths, but the specifics of what someone values in intelligence can vary.

In the future, I might write more about what I think about adherence to dictionary definitions. For now, just keep in mind that I am open to a degree of flexibility in how our language is used.

My early exposure

When I was in school, my teachers used both meanings. This frequently came up when they had a levy on the ballot. They would argue that mental development is a need, so we should all support the schools. They never even tried to connect schooling with mental development.

My teachers moved rapidly between the two meanings. They didn't even seem to realize these shifts. The same could be said for most of my classmates. A lot of people believe that to support one meaning of education requires support for the other.

My views

I did not want my teachers to get away with exploiting confusion between conflicting meanings of a word as a means of obtaining support. Although I was well aware of the two contradictory meanings of education, I refused to accept both. I had to pick one, and I suspect that anyone reading this knows my choice.

I still need to explain why I sided with mental development. There are a few big reasons. The first is that mental development always seemed to take the lead. When my teachers used the term, they were primarily talking about the value of learning. Then they pushed what was essentially a bait and switch to win support for themselves.

Another issue was what seemed to work best for the term. Considering I view the meanings as contradictory, I could say that either one is anti-educational. Consider the two following sentences. Which seems to make more sense?

• Schooling is anti-educational.
• Mental development is anti-educational.

To me, this seems obvious. I seriously struggle with the idea that mental development can be anti-educational. From my perspective, this backs my preferred usage. Since I am an individualist, I have to admit that some people are likely to disagree with me.

Finally, I had a much easier time finding an alternative to the word when discussing schooling than mental development. I still do not have another term that I am comfortable using as an alternative to what I consider to be education. Even mental development has its problems.

Explore?

The article about the etymology of education ultimately found a suggestion for a possible replacement. Perhaps what I have been referring to as education could use the word explore. While this might be closer to my views than schooling, it has similar problems.

Exploring already has another meaning that is quite different. If you use the word for both meanings, you can create a lot of confusion. This is something that I do not want to do.

I have another concern with this suggestion. Education is a noun. Explore is a verb. There is a good verb form of education. What is the noun form of explore? Exploration. An exploration does not seem to be a good alternative for mental development.

Will I change?

What I personally mean by education was influenced by a desire to keep schools from exploiting confusion between the meanings and the lack of a better term. Perhaps I could start discussing mental development instead. That's at least close to what I mean. Unfortunately, that could make for some awkward dialog.

Changing my usage would also re-open that door for the schools to use one meaning to push individuals into embracing a contradictory meanings. Quite frankly, I think that my current usage is still a good approach.

There is one change that I will try to make. I will try not to tell people that it is wrong to refer to schooling as education. Technically speaking, even that meaning is not as good a match as schooling, but it might be close enough for me to show a little more tolerance.