I’m confused by #1 of the Students Education Proclamation which states: “Our education will be reflective of and relevant to the world of work.”

I sure hope there is more to life than mere ‘work.’ Have we allowed uncontrolled corporate greed to redirect the purpose of education? Do we remember why we educated ourselves prior to industrialization? Do we believe Plato, Pascal, and Galileo educated themselves for ‘work?’ Is the mind useful only for ‘work?’ What about art, music, culture? Do we think education’s duty is to regurgitate drones for the continual, mundane turning of society’s cogs? Wake up students! There’s much more to education than ‘work.’ Education should be relevant to ‘life’ and life is much more all-encompassing than the time and space to which we’ve limited ourselves.

Considering the human body as a miniature of a society, we could say the body comprises the culture and the mind takes care of the education of that culture. The body is the expression of the person within. The body ‘translates’ the person’s cultural attitudes, beliefs, and norms to the material world. The mind uses the information gathered by the senses to synthesize its core values and to ‘educate’ the body for it’s preservation according to said attitudes, beliefs, and norms. This is the relationship between education and culture.

Therefore, if the person of the body is in a jungle and needing to survive day by day, the person’s mind uses gathered information to educate for survival. However, if the person is on Wall street negotiating the buying and selling of stocks, the person’s mind uses gathered information to educate accordingly. If we scale this example to the macro level of a society, the analogy remains true as our own history of education proves.

When America was a newly forming democracy, education for survival consisted of transmitting those practices and beliefs that would ensure freedom from monarchical tyranny on the global scale as well as best farming practices for persevering in the new world environment. Such education included Indian tribal relations, adequate housing construction, land clearing, hunting technique development, etc.

Therefore, the sociology of education focused on those formal and informal interactions that shaped our pilgrim ancestors. To remove education from culture is to leave that society in a vegetative state with no real expression. Likewise, to believe the mind will educate contrary to environmental needs for survival is unreasonable. Seeming contradictions are always present as the person strives to reconcile sensory perceptions for survival. Sometimes, we do more than survive; we thrive.