Formal Vs. Informal Education

In the process called informal education, our parents are our first and most important teachers. This forms the first half of the educational experience. The bonds that are formed between parent and child impact the lifelong experience of humans since our parents teach us not only values and attitudes that help shape our moral character, but also decision and problem-solving skills which translate into skills required for survival. These lessons remain with us throughout our entire lives. This process has endured from time immemorial. Throughout history, learning from our parents has been the hallmark of animal existence. It occurs everywhere in nature. The bear cub, for example, learns how to catch fish from the mother bear. The cub further learns how to swim, climb, provide for itself, and avoid dangers. It’s the natural progression of things and occurs in all forms of locomotive life, including that of man.

Prehistoric man, as another example, needed education in order to survive. Fathers taught their sons how to hunt wild animals for food. The sons, when they became of age and had offspring of their own, in turn, taught them how to hunt. Beyond the experience of hunting and food gathering, early people had to learn how to live in harmony with each other and their environment. This evolution of human interactions allows the process of civilization to exist. For it is the process of civilization that ensures that man’s chief means of acquiring and transmitting the essential knowledge and skills of life is presented in a coherent and sequential form, leading to a productive and useful accumulation of information.

In the process called formal education, the second half of the educational experience is accomplished through an endeavor called ‘schooling,’ in which a child receives organized instruction. As may be self-evident, even for modern man, education continues to exert its influence of necessity. A modern society cannot survive without an institution of education, for education is more important today than ever before. It helps people acquire the skills that are required for mundane tasks such as driving to work or the specialized training required for the maintenance and operation of the machinery of industry and commerce. However, the key benefit of education is the self-reward that is derived from accomplishment. Through the combination of self-reward and accomplishment, a person is given the opportunity to learn more about himself, as well as, the world entire. On many of the temples associated with the Ausruca, the Egyptian Mysteries System which served as the earliest educational institution, the phrase “Know Thyself” is inscribed. Knowledge of one’s self and one’s relationship to the outer world is, therefore, the beginning of true understanding, for it is the beginning of self-realization. Self-realization assists in many other areas that are supportive of society because self-realization helps people to adjust to change. In modern society, this ability is important because change occurs at an ever-increasing pace.