Educating Out of Common Sense

Perhaps it is the teenage rebellion inside me.

Perhaps it is simply a disguise of laziness.

I don't know.
But sometimes, I find myself asking this question over and over gain.
What is the point of education?

Can education prepare us for the life? I doubt.
Does education makes us a better human being? I honestly don't know.

At times, learning disillusions me.
Why do we complicate what is so simple?
Why do we make concepts of universal understanding such as peace and power into complex theories and models?
Is it to help us understand and appreciate the complexities?
Complicating what we feel is not the point of education.
Especially when it seems so unnecessary. When it seems that we can come to the same conclusion, using common sense.

When I think of the times when learning felt really important, it has started with me looking for the learning.
Suppose I have a problem. Then, I think of how I can solve this problem? The quest for answer takes me to education. Unlike what I study, that education stays with me.

But in this world of privileged learning, we learn in the reverse way. We say this can be a possible problem you face and this is how you can solve it. We do this once. And twice. And thrice, until at some point, we lose the touch with reality. At that point, we forget that our learning was supposed to help us. Instead, it seems to educate us out of common sense.

Disillusion is a poison for passion.

But I try to remind myself the words of a very wise teacher.
When Michael Sandler introduced his Justice class, he said,

" Skepticism is a resting place for human reasons, where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings, but it is no dwelling place for permanent settlement. Skepticism can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason.”

The point of education is to awaken that restlessness. It is to estrange us from the familiar; not by supplying new information but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing. The risk is once the familiar turn strange, it is never quite the same again.Self knowledge is like lost innocence.

Indeed, self knowledge is like lost innocence.

I will continue to learn but I must remind myself the point of why I am learning.
So that I will not be educated out of my common sense.


After all, it seems that Common sense, is not really common.