7/30/2019 Few Thoughts on Educ n Training

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A Few Thoughts On The Difference Between Education And Training

[This is an excerpt taken from a letter to the editor of National Forum: The Phi Kappa Phi Jour-nal , Spring 2000, p. 46.]

If I may add some additional com-ments to Dr. Wilson's excellent article onGrade Inflation ["The Phenomenon of GradeInflation in Higher Education," Fall 1999,"Lagniappe"], there is another major pres-sure coming into the universities, and par-ticularly the state universities. It is the in-creasing insistence -- particularly from stategovernments (with the associated control of the money) -- that students, when they leave,must be able to walk right into some jobwithout any further "training." This soundsso reasonable that what gets lost is that theuniversities are not in the business of "train-ing." Their business is "educating."

The difference? It's the differencebetween know how and know why . It's thedifference between, say, being trained as apilot to fly a plane and being educated as anaeronautical engineer and knowing why theplane flies, and then being able to improveits design so that it will fly better. Clearlyboth are necessary, so this is not puttingdown the Know-How person; if I am flyingfrom here to there I want to be in the planewith a trained pilot (though if the pilotknows the Why as well, then all the better,particularly in an emergency).

The difference, also, is fundamen-tally that Know How is learning to ThinkOther People's Thoughts, which indeed is

also the first stage in education - - in contrastto learning to Think Your Own Thoughts,which is why Know Why is the final state of education. Indeed, both Know How andKnow Why are essential at one moment oranother, and they interact all the time; but atthe same time, the center of gravity of edu-cation is and must be in the Know Why. Foremphasis in Know How, go to a trainingcollege.

And the further pay-off point is thatwhen the educated student goes into a job,the ability to think one's own thoughts isalso the source of flexibility so that, as the

job requirements change or the job enlarges,the educated student is able to move with thechanges. This should be a central issue withemployers, but all too rarely is this the case.If only trained, then, if the job changes, thestudent has to be retrained.

Are all students fit to be at the uni-versity? This is really not our question; if students can meet the standards and want togo to the university, that's their choice. Butif a student tells me, in the middle of takinga core-required thermodynamics or fluid dy-namics course, "Don't give me all that theo-

retical stuff; just give me the equation andtell me how to use it," then I know that thestudent wants to be trained, not educated. . .

Robert H. EssenhighThe Ohio State University