02 )[ejb?{d
Schooling Uy@:-NC)kn
and MjK<n[.
Education b"Jr_24t3v
It is commonly believed in United States that school is where people go to get an education. 7/iN`3Bz
Nevertheless, it has been said that today children interrupt their education to go to school. The h~O^~"jc
distinction between schooling and education implied by this remark is important. j|{
n?
Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling. Education knows no bounds. It ;WgzR_'!'
can take place anywhere, whether in the shower or in the job, whether in a kitchen or on a tractor. It *n EG<Y)
includes both the formal learning that takes place in schools and the whole universe of informal ^2i$AM1t
learning. The agents of education can range from a revered grandparent to the people debating @.,'A[D!K
politics on the radio, from a child to a distinguished scientist. Whereas schooling has a certain a6?t?:~|
predictability, education quite often produces surprises. A chance conversation with a stranger may WkV0,_(P
lead a person to discover how little is known of other religions. People are engaged in education from . HAFKB;
infancy on. Education, then, is a very broad, inclusive term. It is a lifelong process, a process thatstarts long before the start of school, and one that should be an integral part of one’s entire life. gLlA'`!
Schooling, on the other hand, is a specific, formalized process, whose general pattern varies little from I1JL`\;4
one setting to the next. Throughout a country, children arrive at school at approximately the same 4\j1+&W
time, take assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do homework, take exams, @\+UTkl8
and so on. The slices of reality that are to be learned, whether they are the alphabet or an W,:j>vg
understanding of the working of government, have usually been limited by the boundaries of the N|8^S
subject being taught. For example, high school students know that there not likely to find out in their ;u<F,o(
classes the truth about political problems in their communities or what the newest filmmakers are m8INgzVTC
experimenting with. There are definite conditions surrounding the formalized process of schooling.