Education has been on my mind recently. I teach quite a number of high school students, and I’m trying to do the very best I can to help them become educated, quote unquote. And I like to say, who is my teacher?
And you are, of course, you’re your own teacher. But placed against that, of course, in history, are the highly educated people who have done some terrible things, some crimes that are hard even to imagine.
I was recently watching a documentary about a man by the name of Nidal Hasan, and he was an American-born Muslim, American-born, born and raised in the United States. Eventually, he joined the US military. They educated him.
He became a psychiatrist, of all things, which is a medical doctor who takes on additional training into the problems of the mind. Like any doctor, physical doctor, but this is dealing with something even more specialized.
A doctor of the mind, somebody you would think you could totally trust, because you’re going to tell him, obviously, the truth. Like you go to a physical doctor who asks you tell me where your aches and pains are.
A mind doctor, a psychiatrist, is going to ask you similar things. Tell me about your trauma in the field, and what it was like to shoot and kill someone, or have your friend blown up beside you.
I mean, these modern weapons are just beyond imagination, supposedly. And so, this man, this character, became radicalized. He began to believe that it was wrong for Muslim soldiers to kill other Muslims.
But of course, it’s wrong, as we know, for anyone to kill anyone, period. But that being said, he then said to himself that it is wrong for Muslim soldiers to kill other Muslims.
And so, when these poor soldiers were sitting around, taken into the deployment, there was some deployment going on, they’re off to Afghanistan, he jumped up with a semi-automatic pistol and he fired into the hall, basically.
And he ended up killing 13 soldiers and wounding another 30 or 31. And eventually, he was subdued and he’s still alive and he’s been sentenced to death.
Now, this is a horrible topic to discuss, but I think it is important in a bizarre sense because it goes to show us that there is a disconnect between a moral education, if you will, and an actual physical education.
So you ask yourself, what is the purpose of education? And you would think it is to make a better human being. That’s true, isn’t it?
But along the way, we have to be coaching in the moral aspects of life, not only on the knowledge that’s associated with education for sure. So you ask yourself, what is an education? What is its meaning?
Well, an education traditionally was something from the Latin called educere, which means to lead out, lead out, to lead out of you, right? Now think to yourself, in each of us, we have these three fundamental questions. Why am I here?
What’s my mission? And what happens when I die? The concept of my mission becomes extremely important, and my mission is already inside me, so it must obviously be led out.
My mission must be pulled out of me, led out of me, right? So then, education, if that’s correct, slowly but surely produces the awareness of the gifts that I possess.
But they’re raw, aren’t they? They’re just raw gifts. I don’t really know what to do with them.
And that’s where education, in the real sense, should show her might, because she then begins to discipline my brilliance, if you will.
And in that sense, let’s say, for instance, my natural talent, the mind comes forward and I decide I’m going to study philosophy, philosophy, for instance. Now, there are many, many brilliant people who have become philosophers, obviously.
But philosophy, I think, is a nice subject, in the sense that it poses to you immediately what is philosophy. And of course, the philosophy is the pursuit of truth, of wisdom.
So in this, you know that it is wrong to take the life of another human being. So philosophy certainly comes very close to aligning with theology, most assuredly. And so, in that sense, you see education as moral development.
And then, once you get into that moral development, you’d really do start to stumble into some type of liberation, if you will.
So if you take people like Carl Jung, for instance, he’s describing the ego, which is going to do probably evil things in the world, if let free. But the ego then, in the develop person, confronts the shadow.
The shadow is the violence, the arrogance, the desire to be in control. And then slowly the shadow gives way to the real being, the self. And the self most assuredly is a peaceful being, because all you have to do is the test.
Kiss someone on the cheek, you feel warm, so obviously we are loving creatures. Hit someone and you feel disquieted, you feel uncomfortable, because we are not angry, violent beings at all. Then people would be very confused.
Why have you struck me? Have you struck me in despair? Have you struck me in anger?
How have you struck me? But kiss someone on the cheek and they know that you love me, like a friend, like a brother, like a mother, like a father, like a lover, right? And ultimately, education answers the crisis of meaning, doesn’t it?
How am I going to exist in life? But it finally comes and answers, why am I going to exist in life, doesn’t it? Why?
The why of me, most assuredly. And this is why I think real education is often said to be a lifelong undertaking. Slowly but surely, I will get closer and closer and closer to this self.
So I guess you could conclude that education leads us to knowledge, but ultimately, it doesn’t always lead us to wisdom, because wisdom is most assuredly loving, caring, certainly non-violent, certainly.
It follows the dictates of great teachers like Jesus, who said, turn the other cheek, be non-violent, because violence only begats violence, as we’re seeing in the present world.
And there will be no resolution to all of these conflicts, most assuredly not. It is only when we learn to truly talk to one another that we will have peace.
Now, there are some religious people who believe we need an end, we need revelation, we need collapse, we need a messiah. And let us hope that if this is true, that we find a messiah who can bring total peace to the earth, not a false one.
There’s been so many false messiahs in history, has there not? So we need a real one, one that will bring us peace and joy and love and understanding. And this can only come about with a real education.
And you know what they say, you know what they say, critical thinking is everything, especially if we seek a real education. And critical thinking is great, truly great. You take care.
God bless. Bye bye.