What is education? Is it merely a transfer of facts and knowledge? Or, is it a formative process designed to create a more holistic individual? Do we get an education just for monetary improvement? Or, do we seek something else through the college experience? People answer these and other questions differently, and so our education system requires diversity. Too many people worry about which method of education works best. Instead, I would direct them to worry about how they can help students find which educational method works best for them.
As I walk dangerously close to the line of educational relativity, I realize that there are certain practices that when employed in the art of education prove more successful. What I would argue, however, is that those practices are universals not particulars the same way that poetry, fiction, and non-fiction all use letters, words, and language, but not all use plot, rhythm, or rhyme. What are those universals? How do they affect college? I don’t think we have all the answers, but that is what we should worry about, not which form of education works best. Albert Einstein said that, “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” Still, Albert’s knowledge had to come from some effective form of learning. It is my belief that if we find the universals of learning and education, we can have Eintseins in every subject using every form of education.
