The purpose of education in the Second Enlightenment needs to be seriously reviewed. The goal of education should not be merely about becoming literate and knowledgeable about one thing or another. Real learning is about how to make the journey of life a pleasurable experience for ourselves and our travel companions on earth. It starts from childhood. Schooling requires a balanced approach to the psychological growth of a child who should be learning to maintain a well-composed, empathic mind and critical thinking.

Education is a wonderful thing in and of itself for the technical advancement of humanity; there is no argument here. With education, many past misconceptions, particularly in the medical and technological fields have been addressed and explored. But education alone has not proved to be a solution to many of our social ills, political dysfunction and violence. It is clear that war, slavery, colonialism, misogyny, economic inequities, environmental damage, animal suffering and other damaging phenomena have in fact been inflicted upon our world by highly educated people who have attended prestigious educational institutions. But it seems that very often, the technical skills of literacy and the general knowledge of an education do not equate to a transformation of the heart. This is where living human beings, children in particular need dialogues, philosophy and other layers of thought and behavior for transformation of the heart.

The preliterate generation of our grandparents, perhaps even our parents, hoped for and imagined a world with a high literacy rate, since literacy rates are often the measure of ‘success,’ and even ‘intelligence’ in a country. With more literacy, the expectation was the development of a more judicious, advanced and a peaceful world. The bitter truth is that while we have become more educated in more fields than ever before in the history of humanity, dreadful and unjust things keep happening. It seems literacy, or even education, is not the answer by itself.

Despite the vast quantities of information and technical skill imparted through formal education over recent centuries, there is a shocking shortage of vision and wisdom. Education is like a tool, a car to travel in, but the meaning or direction of the journey of education is not very clear anymore. If education has not addressed the collaborative efforts among us humans and has not taught us how important our interdependent survival is, this education is only a mechanical endeavor which has no spirit.

Emotional Intelligence

The ideal education of a human being in the Second Enlightenment would include emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is needed to realize and solve one’s own issues and dilemmas as well as issues beyond oneself by caring about and for others:  animals, plants, nature and the suffering and joys of others. The process of being educated is therefore a journey from self to non-self. It is also a journey of embracing and accepting the impermanency of the world without constantly grappling for living longer and becoming materially richer. While traditional education’s content serves an important purpose for living in a more complicated world, it is no longer enough to serve us in this psychologically intricate panorama of life.

If education in the Second Enlightenment cannot enhance the inner growth of a child who will eventually become an adult, we are doomed to continue to face ongoing issues similar to those the earlier generations of the first Enlightenment experienced.

In seeing education as a journey, we must shift paradigms so that education of a child progresses from the inside out, not from the outside in. If the pedagogists, the policymakers, and parents are able to espouse and support the inner development of a child, we can then see an adult in the Second Enlightenment who is mature, aware of self and others, and can live with common sense and responsive wisdom.