Suli Breaks – Why I Hate School But Love Education [Official Spoken Word Video]

This spoken word advances an argument for separating the phenomena of education and school. In particular, it forces us to rethink our conceptualizations of education and its relationship with the school.

We believe that the schooling system (elementary, high school and higher learning) provides us with the education and capacity to realize our aspirations. However, this is not the case today because we have confused the meaning of education with the machine bureaucracy of the schooling system. We have merged the concepts of education and schooling insofar that we believe that individuals who do not go through the system are uneducated.

Education is acquired through many sources. Schooling is one of many. The community, personal experiences, and other work are some of the many examples that can provide education. However, equating schooling to education privileges some sources of education over others. In my opinion, all sources of education must be considered equitably for true education. Moreover, by privileging schooling, we deemphasize the role and impact of other sources of education.

The main contention I wish to make in this reflection is to not confuse education with schooling. We are privileged to receive graduate and postgraduate degrees, but let us not consider ourselves educated only because of these degrees. Education may be acquired through other means.

tl;dr: Education does not equal Schooling

Umair Majid