Education remains undervalued in understanding Einstein's scientific advances

¶ … Education?

According to Albert Einstein, education is what remains after an individual has forgotten what he/she learnt in school. It's generally considered that education systems should be designed in order to teach individuals how to think. Consequently, the aim of education is to teach people how to improve their minds instead of what to think. In such instances, education enables individuals to think for themselves and transform their lives instead of filling their memories with negative perceptions about other people. Actually, philosophers argue that an educational system is not necessary if it only teaches people to make a living rather than teaching them how to make a life ("Education is What Remains," 2011).

The statement means that the purpose of education goes beyond exposing students to several perspectives that improve their knowledge on specific areas to permit them to think critically, reflect, and explore what they learnt in school. As a result, education becomes the platform that provides opportunities for individuals to grasp the big picture regarding issues and topics and how to apply their theoretical knowledge to practical situations in real life. Therefore, the value of education is to teach people general skill that will help them in various settings within and outside the school setting (Goksun, n.d.).

This statement by Albert Einstein is true to a certain extent since it promotes the idea that the value and basis of education is thinking. Actually, the basis of education is to provide individuals with the necessary tools to collect something and use it for its main purpose. Through education, students are provided with the ability to evaluate facts based on their assumptions regardless of whether they are implicit or explicit. While facts are only true from a particular viewpoint, they are important in individuals' understanding of the things they learn in school and how to apply them in practical situations.

Since education is centered on thinking, it can be evaluated effectively through the response of individuals in real-life situations rather than in the school setting. Education can be considered as the leftovers from what an individual learns in school because it should help him/her to unload and evaluate assumptions from various perspectives. Individuals should be able to understand and analyze real-life situations from several perspectives rather than the student's perspective only (Weigle, n.d.). This is mainly because the ability of an individual to apply his/her knowledge learnt in school is dependent on his/her interaction with the school setting and the outside world through an understanding of multiple perspectives.

Secondly, the statement can be regarded as true because education in the school setting enables individuals to access, develop, and assess part of the individual natures. As a result students realize the prospects for their own work and necessary support for conveying their ideas in the school setting and the outside world. Once students have accessed, developed, and assessed their individual natures, they do not need to remember the things they learnt in school. These students apply their own individual natures in practical situations from the education they received in school. Therefore, education becomes the channel for development and evaluation of individual natures rather than a concept to be remembered continually.