What is education?

What is education and what is its purpose?

         Perhaps one of the most frequently asked questions is “What is educa-tion, and what is its purpose?”. The most common misconception about education is that it is associated only with school. People think that we learn in school or maybe college , and once we graduate, we can “stop learning”. The fact is that education is a lifelong process. People need education in their lives as much as they need water.
         I believe that education has three steps: learning, using, and teaching.
We start learning when we are in elementary school. This primitive stage of education involves learning by concepts. Once we have mastered the concepts we get ready to enter the next stage. There is a bridge between learning and using. While we are in high school and college, there is a lot of “hands-on” learning . This is basically using the concepts that you learned to learn something else. An example would be a lab activity in a science class. Then we enter the stage of using our knowledge. The place where we use education the most is a job. What is a job? In most simple terms , it is using your knowledge to perform a certain kind of work. In my opinion every job requires knowledge, no matter how easy and insignificant the job might seem. In order to do well at your job, you need to have a great education. Therefore the argument that you do not need education, that you can just find a good job, begs the question. So what is next? I mean, after we learned, and used the knowledge, are we not finished with education? There is one more step to complete our education. This is the most important step: teaching. After we have learned and used our knowledge, the only reasonable thing to do is to convey that knowledge to some one else. By teaching you help people achieve greatness, just like you have. Teaching can be done in many forms: teaching in school, writing a book, creating a work of art. By teaching you complete the steps of education.
          Getting back to our question: What is education and what is its purpose?
I believe that the process of education is gaining knowledge, but the purpose is teaching. You educate yourself so that you can educate others. Then those people who you teach will teach others. The result of this cycle not only improves us, but also our world as a whole.