There are two fundamental ways to learn.  One is to make a decision to think/act/ or speak in a certain way and then to learn from the consequences, which could be good or bad.  The other way is to allow someone to tell you about someone else’s actions and what their consequences were.   When we are small children we tend to try things out on our own to see what works and what doesn’t  work, but as we get older we discover that if we listen to what others have done we can save ourselves a lot of pain.  The role or purpose of a teacher is to be that guide.  To explain to students what has been done in the past, what has worked, and what has not worked.  Then the teacher allows the student to make the decision as to what they want to do.   The students mind has been expanded beyond their personal experience and then teacher has given them the tools to decide.  To decide what?  Anything.  Teachers give students the tools to make their own decisions based on a wealth of knowledge and in the context of their own lives. 

                For example a physics teacher can explain the laws of gravity to a student in high school.  Then later in life they travel to a bridge that spans a beautiful river far below that has a bungee jump platform.  Now the physics teacher explained that gravity pulls a mass toward the Earth’s surface and that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Now the physics teacher just taught them about the laws of physics not whether or not it is a good idea to jump off a bridge.  So the student is able to weigh these laws and decide to jump or not to jump.    

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.