When Nelson Mandela, freedom fighter extraordinaire, humanist and free South Africa’s first president described education as “the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world”, he wasn’t exaggerating. There’s universal unanimity that education is the panacea for all socio-economic problems. It is synonymous with progress, civilisation, quality of life and potential. It’s the prescription to make us happier, healthier, wiser and richer.

But education is a double-edged sword. Highly educated men and women have given us the miracles of modern medicine, but equally well-educated scientists gave us the nuclear bomb which may well exterminate humanity. The fruits of education have exalted and debased humanity allowing mankind to probe the furthest reaches of the universe, but also to unleash terrifying human depravity.

Of course, Mandela wasn’t talking about standard or common education. He was referring to the type of education that renowned economist E.F. Schumacher had in mind when he wrote: “If still more education is to save us, it would have to be education of a different kind: an education that takes us into the depth of things.” This is the type of education which every committed teacher aspires to deliver — transformative learning, shaping young lives and inspiring noble dreams from which grand passions emerge into the light of day.

It’s simplistic to assume that the aim of education is accumulation of facts, passing examinations, acquiring qualifications, earning money and making a living. This was the type of education enthusiastically recommended by author Charles Dickens’ character Mr. Gradgrind (Hard Times). “Now, what I want are facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them,” he proclaimed.

If only education was that simple! While the ability to earn a good living is a necessary and important accomplishment, it’s not the goal of education but a by-product of it. The goal of education is — or should be — transfer of a way of life.

In the aftermath of the holocaust of the Second World War in which 6 million Jews were systematically murdered in concentration camps under the supervision of obersturmbannfuhrer (lieutenant colonel) Adolf Eichmann, a headmaster poignantly highlighted this reality when he wrote the following letter to his staff: “I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness: Gas chambers built by learned engineers, children poisoned by educated physicians, infants killed by trained nurses, women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates. So I am suspicious of education. My request is: help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.”

Whatever truths are worth knowing are not found in cold facts but in interpretation of facts to derive meaning and significance. All human beings are natural story-tellers, yet we have a congenital hunger for meaning. Most people are too quick to present explanations of things they don’t really understand — preferring the sensational to relevant. They rush to spot caricature in a few brush strokes and deduce apparent cause from a few dubious facts. Learned academics and media analysts weave full and intricate stories from random threads, fashioning simple order out of complexity. In the face of uncertainty, they lack the humility to express ignorance or doubt. If only pundits could tell their stories without writing arrogance into every chapter!

And so it is with education — for all education is not equal. Some education has changed the world in the way Nelson Mandela envisaged. Other education has stimulated savagery and selfish greed. Educational writer, Tim Brighouse, once noted: “Some of the shared value systems we have are quite pernicious and they can be successful in a kind of pernicious way. Most of our schools have unspoken assumptions in their organisation, the timetable and curriculum which reinforce individualism and materialism, and minimise the need for co-operation.”

If education is to take us into the depths of learning and enrich humanity, it has to be a process which takes students beyond the academic curriculum, the grade-book and the examination hall. It has to nourish the soul as much as it feeds the intellect. In this sense, education must unequivocally be interpreted as spiritual activity. It is about shaping young lives, confronting destructive modern materialism and self-centredness and showing young people how to live what ancient philosophers described as the “good life”.

Admittedly, this interpretation of high-quality education is closer to the monastery than the marketplace. But as schools have moved from the former to the latter, they have lost significantly more than they have gained. Education may be the most powerful weapon with which we can change the world, but like any powerful weapon it needs very careful aim before the trigger is pulled.

Read: Placing K-12 education back on track

(Dr. Jonathan Long is principal of the Woodstock School, Mussoorie)