My definition of education is that it is a conveyance of knowledge/life skills/experiences from one individual/group to another individual/group.  This is where our group discussion started on Tuesday and I quickly began to take on multiple additions to the basic definition.  We discussed the possibility of adding “for the greater good” to our definition.  The group as a whole seemed to feel it was a good addition however it then necessitated a definition of “the greater good.”  This is difficult to define as we felt our audience could be from a varied background.  For example the greater good in our society could mean for the advancement of the United States in the world stage.  In a monetarily poorer society it might mean for the simple procurement of food.  I personally felt that there is too much room for interpretation so a simpler definition holds true for a larger population. 

                A second caveat that our group came up with was that the purpose of the education was to help the student learn to adapt.  From a biological standpoint this is the basic key to a group’s survival.  If the group is able to share previously learned knowledge then the members of the group will be able to adapt to their ever changing environment thus ensuring their groups survival.  This in itself is theoretically a variation on “for the greater good,” however I feel that speaking of adaptation vs. “greater good”  allows room for an individual to have adaptations that are different from the group, thus traversing from survival of the fittest group to survival of the fittest individual.  I think that it is important, as we as humans are so different from one another, to acknowledge that despite the educator being a part of the society and the bearer of society’s knowledge, that the educator is still and individual full of individual experiences.  Dewey’s piece, in my opinion, seemed to state that the educator is merely a voice for the society.  If society had experiences as a group there would be no real reason to convey an learned knowledge.  It is these individual experiences that all knowledge to be gained from these experiences and thus passed on to others via education. So in the end I guess I feel that my original definition holds most general and true.