What Does "Education" Really Mean?

In this post, I would like to look at an excerpt from the introduction to chapter one of DDDoA (The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America). This entire book is about education. But, what does the word "education" really mean? We must always keep in mind what words mean. You will remember from a previous post that a tool used by those trying to bring about change, is the redefining of words. The first definition of "education" that Iserbyt shares with us, in the first chapter, is taken from The New Century Dictionary of the English Language (Appleton, Century, Crofts: New York, 1927):

"'Education: The drawing out of a person’s innate talents and abilities by imparting the knowledge of languages, scientific reasoning, history, literature, rhetoric, etc.—the channels through which those abilities would flourish and serve.'

A quantum leap was taken from the above definition to the new, dehumanizing definition used by the experimental psychologists found in An Outline of Educational Psychology (Barnes & Noble: New York, 1934, rev. ed.) by Rudolph Pintner et al. That truly revolutionary definition claims that

'learning is the result of modifiability in the paths of neural conduction. Explanations of even such forms of learning as abstraction and generalization demand of the neurones only growth, excitability, conductivity, and modifiability. The mind is the connection-system of man; and learning is the process of connecting. The situation-response formula is adequate to cover learning of any sort, and the really influential factors in learning are readiness of the neurones, sequence in time, belongingness, and satisfying consequences.'

An in-depth understanding of the deplorable situation found in our nation’s schools today is impossible without an understanding of the redefinition in the above statements. Education in the twenty-first century will, for the majority of youth, be workforce training. Thus, the need for Pavlovian/Skinnerian methodology based on operant conditioning which, in essence, is at the heart of the above dehumanizing definition of education. This “sowing of the seeds” through redefinition will reap the death of traditional, liberal arts education through the advent of mastery learning, outcome-based education, and direct instruction—all of which will be performance-based and behaviorist." (1-2; ch.1)