What Is Education?

By Romeo B. Macale, PhD

The standard classical definition of education is “the process by which an individual is adjusted to his whole ambit of existence; the whole being is the subject of education; and the whole of life is its end.“ (Sir Stanley Leathes, What Is Education?). Biblically, education or to educate is to bring up, train up, teach, nurture, and nourish.  The teacher is the authority, dispenser, transmitter, and source of knowledge, the learner is its subject, and the whole of life is its end. Knowledge is dependent on the teacher who knows to TEACH and NOT to FACILITATE (constructivism). Proper education requires a knowledgeable teacher to inculcate knowledge in the learner, train the child’s mind to think deeply and apply the knowledge practically by the student under the teacher’s direct, explicit, and clear face-to-face instruction. Constructivism leaves learners to their own devices in the belief for the acquisition of knowledge that never happens. Thus, it inevitably produces illiteracy and innumeracy. Read the teaching of the following biblical passages:

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6). 

Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts (Isaiah 28:9).

For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little (Isaiah 28:10).

But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken (Isaiah 28:13).

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).

Why teach, train up, bring up, nurture and nourish the child? Why not allow him to learn by himself as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (in his book “Emile”) brazenly did theorize and John Dewey (from his book “Experience and Education”) flagrantly did philosophize? Their ideologies are worse and incomparable to truth stranger than fiction. The truth is, education will not be realized if the child is allowed to construct knowledge by himself alone. As a result, if the child is left to construct ideas or concepts independently without someone explicitly teaching him knowledge other than himself, there are dire, irrevocable catastrophic consequences; you will be assured to produce 100% a wild, feral child. The following biblical passages will affirm these facts:

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him (Proverbs 2:15).

The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies (Psalm 58:3).

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children (Hosea 4:6).

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one (Romans 3:10-12).

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

The video documentaries below will demonstrate the claim of the above passages and the disastrous consequences of Rousseau’s and Dewey’s education philosophies. Note, for more details of “What Is Education?”, you may purchase a copy of my book: “Education Catastrophe: The Curse of Ignorance”, which was released in March 2020. It is now available in Kindle and Paperback editions on Amazon.com. You need to watch these video clips quickly because Youtube.com will remove or destroy them quickly as soon as they discover these video clips are used as pieces of evidence for the truth of the DESTRUCTION of knowledge.