A Proper Definition of Education

The common definition of education is simply wrong when you consider how education actually occurs.
A proper definition of education will have to cover these four important aspects of how we become educated:

1. The necessity of having and manipulating knowledge, skills and information
2. The helpfulness of teachers, without requiring them
3. The constant need to see through the inherent illusions that arise from our unconscious thought processes, and
4. Our ability to influence our states of mind

Based on these four criteria I define education as a process of cognitive cartography.




Cognitive Cartography Definition of Education
What all learners are doing is developing a map of reliable methods of getting from negative states of mind to positive states of mind.
The units of knowledge skills and information are points on the map, but what makes the map useful are accurate portrayals of the relationships between the points and how those points can be used to arrive at the desired states of mind.




Let’s pretend you want to get to Los Angeles from Seattle.
I make two points on a piece of paper then label them Seattle and Los Angeles, but, having given you two points of information is totally useless, so far.




The two points can only become a map after I depict actual relationships between the two points, such as indicating which way is North and then adding a connection between the points, such as highways, trail systems, or public transportation options like buses, trains or airplanes.
But even that is of limited use because if you do not know how you relate to the places I have already drawn, then the information is still useless.
In order for the map to become useful, you have to know where you are and how your position relates to the points and lines on the map.




All of this is true in education.
"Units" are useless until they are effectively related to each other and even connected units are useless until the person with the original intention to travel can fit themselves into that particular picture of the world in a way the gets them where they want to be.
The key quality of an educated person is the ability to move from negative states of mind to positive states of mind and assist others to do the same.
This covers all situations where there are problems such as poverty, conflict, and pollution as well as problems like depression, ignorance, or ambition.




Navigating the Human Mind
The world that we are concerned with in elementary education is the human mind.
Children need to learn to navigate the terrain of their own minds so that they can effectively navigate the real world that confronts that mind with all the challenges of earthly human existence.
Therefore, what is elementary in elementary school is gaining control over your own behavior and learning to coordinate your behavior with others.
The most fundamental lesson of elementary school is governance of behavior, our own and other people’s.
The mastery of our own individual behavior requires us to realize that just because we think something does not make it so.
Our minds, especially when we are children, are highly productive illusion machines.




Young children live in a magical realm in which thinking makes things happen.
The popular success of The Secret, a motion picture length infomercial on the power of positive thinking, shows that magical thinking is not limited to children.
The task of becoming an adult is mastering the process of disillusionment.
By the time children are of school age they have a lot of ideas based on a combination of the way their brains are built and how their experiences have shaped that building process.
We build up a vast repertoire of concepts, mostly unconscious concepts, about the world and our own minds.




Unfortunately most of those concepts are basically wrong except for accomplishing the simplest childish intentions.
The eternal moral challenge of living as a responsible adult is to persistently inquire into how our concepts of the world and our own minds mislead us into causing our own and other people’s suffering.
The way that we rise to meet this moral challenge is by examining how our own mind deceives us, through practicing empathy for the states of mind we cause in other people by our actions, and actively taking responsibility for preventing and alleviating suffering in every way we can.
We all know from first hand experience that positive states of mind are both the most enjoyable states and the most productive.

If we can ensure that everyone is capable of optimizing their own state of mind and assisting other’s to optimize theirs, then everyone will have maximum opportunity for enjoying life and being productive.

Consistent attainment of positive states of mind is better known as having a good attitude (you were probably wondering when attitude would come in.)

Thus if everyone can achieve a good attitude and help others do the same then the world will be a better place.

Thus education, the process of attaining and assisting others to attain a good attitude that enables a person to perceive accurately, think clearly, and act effectively according to self-selected goals, is fundamentally about attitude no matter what age or level of schooling you are concerned with.