An Ordinary Miracle: Education
How can an arrow, shot from eternity, before humanity itself, be elevated further? This elevation, impossible in the physical world, is a standard for humanity. Humans, who bring the arrow into language and onto paper, experience this miracle daily. Humanity is in an ordinary miracle, continuing to draw and elevate the arrow shot from eternity.
Individuals elevate the arrow further by teaching and writing for future generations. However, not everyone elevates it to the same degree. Sometimes, the arrow on paper is drawn in the wrong places, fails to reach the lines of others, and even draws backward in contradiction to the physical reality. Education is an effort rooted in human nature, strong enough to reverse a launched arrow.
What is being educated?
Education is a miracle but how should we do it? Very little of what we learn in school stays in our minds. Rarely do the words of our elders reach the future. Even politicians don’t follow what the states say unless they have to. No one listens to what anyone else says, and even if they do, they don’t understand; even if they understand, they don’t remember. Only our feelings are unforgettable; the emotions we feel while learning live and grow with us. The things that remain, even if we try to forget, are the real outputs of education.
Education is not “this.”
It is often difficult to say, “Education is X,” because the opposite can be true depending on the perspective. For the state, education is about instrumentalizing people, while for the individual, it is the path to freedom. For the family, it is about raising someone to take care of them, while for the authority, it is about raising soldiers. Therefore, our aim is to liken education only to archery and produce associations with an analogy. Learning resembles acquiring the unknown with what we know, and education resembles acquiring the unknown with the known.
Military analogies are humanity’s fundamental weapons.
Language works like a system of codes established for the group. Those who cannot use that code are excluded, because without using the same code, cannot understand each other, and advance. That’s why we don’t consider those who don’t use the structure called language to be human. Just as we can turn a baby into a death machine, we also live by turning sounds into vital tools. Since analogy is at the core of language, it is the most commonly used method in education, religion, and new visions. That’s why we have constructed the analogy of archery.
It is like an arrow composed by millions of lines.
Education is like transferring a physical arrow from eternity onto paper and continuing to draw it. If it suits its purpose, it looks beautiful; if not, it is drawn in vain. Sometimes, we fail and draw it in the wrong direction. Often, it has dark sides, but as long as it leads to the target, we don’t complain. The arrow goes wherever we draw it, but it’s not just teachers, parents, or states that draw people’s arrows; everyone’s and every era’s effects exist in this arrow from eternity to eternity. From eternity, we try to elevate this arrow, drawn by millions over millions of years, without losing momentum.
This is the first chapter of the book titled “Further Exaltation of the Arrow That Has Been Shot from Eternity – Education.”
