A Technical Definition of Education

We thus reach a technical definition of education: it is that reconstruction or reorganization of experience that adds to the meaning of experience and that increases ability to direct the course of subsequent experience. (1) The increment of meaning corresponds to the increased perception of the connections and continuities of the activities in which we are engaged. The activity begins in an impulsive form; that is, it is blind. It does not know what it is about; that is to say, what its interactions with other activities are. An activity that brings education or instruction with it makes one aware of some of the connections that had been imperceptible. To return to our simple example, a child who reaches for a bright light gets burned. From then on he knows that a certain act of touching in connection with a certain act of vision (and vice versa) means heat and pain; or, a certain light means a source of heat. The acts by which a scientist in his laboratory learns more about flame do not differ at all in principle. By doing certain things, he makes perceptible certain connections of heat with other things, which had been previously ignored. Thus his acts in relation to these things get more meaning. He knows better what he is doing or “is about” when he has to do with them. He can intend consequences instead of just letting them happen—all synonymous ways of saying the same thing. At the same stroke, the flame has gained in meaning; all that is known about combustion, oxidation, about light and temperature, may become an intrinsic part of its intellectual content.