This is the first essay I’ve posted since April 27. In the intervening two months, I’ve given all my literary energy to finishing my next book, The Christian University & The Academic Establishment. I expect it to be published sometime in August. I will have more to say about it then.

As always happens when you are reading and formulating your thoughts on one topic, other issues come into view that you must set aside for the moment. In writing the The Christian University & The Academic Establishment, I read much about the history and the current state of higher education in America, and this concentration forced me to ask other questions: What is education? What is learning? What part do schools play in learning? What does it mean to be an educated person? How does one gain a good education? And specifically, how does one gain a good education in Christianity? In the next few months, I hope to address these questions and more. This essay sets the table for that discussion.

Truly Educated People are Humble

We will never know everything. We must be satisfied with (1) learning what we need to know for living the life we want to live; and (2) doing the best we can to make sure that the knowledge we gain—partial though it is—cannot be completely falsified by future discoveries.

We don’t know what we don’t know. Remember the old saying “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”? Why is that? Because that little knowledge is surrounded by a lot of ignorance! But we can know that we don’t know. So, be humble and careful. Strive to distinguish between beliefs that are firmly grounded in evidence and thus are likely to withstand scrutiny and those that are supported solely by our desires, vanity, wishes, and feelings.

No individual knows everything that is known. Human knowledge is a communal possession. Unlike animals, human beings can learn from the thoughts, discoveries, and experiences of other people and pass that knowledge on to future generations so that the body of knowledge grows with the passage of time. Each new generation benefits from this heritage of wisdom, knowledge, and skills. The process of passing on this knowledge is called education.

Principles of Education

There is a difference between schooling and education. One can attend a school, college or university—even get a degree—without acquiring a good education. To gain an education, one must learn.

Learning is always something we do. We can sit at a desk while a teacher lectures, but learning involves assimilating new information into the body of knowledge and the patterns of understanding we already possess. It changes us.

The sum total of human knowledge can be refined and extended only by those who have mastered traditional knowledge. You need to learn what is already known. Even though this body of knowledge is incomplete and may contain errors, it is the best starting place for learning more. Only from this vantage point can an individual see unanswered questions and the limits of inherited theories, methods, and procedures.

A good education is one that enables us to live well in the society in which we dwell. As I said above, no one can know everything. It is the business of educators to create programs of study that provide students with the opportunity to gain a good education. Unsurprisingly, educators do not agree completely among themselves on what that program of study should be, and it is always changing as society changes. But in general, educators agree that it is a great advantage for a person to gain basic proficiency in language, history, natural science, economics, and political and social institutions.

How to Get a Good Education

How can you make sure that you get a good education? Whatever subject you want to study, place yourself under the tutelage of teachers who can direct you to the best of what is known and guide you through a maze of crackpot ideas, fancies, and conspiracies. As I emphasized above, there is a difference between going to a school and getting a good education. The most important thing about becoming an educated person is not where you learn but that you acquire the best knowledge available and become a discerning and critical student. However, for most people, the best place to begin this journey is in an educational institution—a high school, college or university. Why here? Because these institutions gather in one place teachers who have given many years to mastering their disciplines and are responsible to their professions. It is their duty to direct your attention to the best knowledge available—ideas and practices that have been critically examined by many thinkers and have proven themselves useful and reliable.

The Higher Education Mess

Almost every book I’ve read on the subject—whether coming from the right or the left or from inside or outside the university—complains that higher education in America is a mess. Universities are too expensive, too inefficient, sold out to the political left, or in danger from the political right. They encourage students to take on huge debt to earn useless degrees. They are run too much like corporations. Needed change proceeds at a glacial pace. Professors care more about their research than their students. Tenure and academic freedom shield incompetent faculty and serve as cover for anti-academic, political activism.

I agree. Education in America at all levels is a mess. Reforms are needed. Alternative paths to a good education are desirable. But my point in this essay is this: Whatever reforms in existing educational institutions we enact or new ways of securing an education we envision, at the core of all of them must lie the process of learning an accumulated body of knowledge and skills from those who already know them. And this is the answer to the question posed in the title: What is Education?