The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
Throughout the school life I used to wonder why I have to carry a heavy bag every day, with the books that never ever even tried to make me interested in them. That fragile enthusiasm for knowledge made my life a little meaningless, which resulted in my being marinated in my own beliefs and thoughts. Until the recent years, when my fussy vision and belief for the society and the world became coherent or started to change. And now I believe that the world is a battleground and life is like a battle. To fight and win the battle called life, one needs to be armed with education. Education not only ensures our survival in this world but it also makes our life worth living, we can say that “education is not preparation for life but education is life itself.” When I say that, what I mean to highlight is the fact that education is a process in which we learn throughout our life.
According to Sydney J. Harris “The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows” which could be interpreted in many ways. The one way of understanding this saying is by imagining an uneducated person like a human being locked in a chamber which has mirrors in lieu of Windows. That person can only watch his own reflection in those mirrors and will make all his beliefs based solely on that, without bearing in mind the logic and the world. If that person wants to discern the world and wants the world to recognize them, then those mirrors must be turned into windows, which is only possible through education. As It enables people to know the world beyond their own surroundings and transforms them into rationalists and humanists. Here, the mirrors are the hurdles or threats which are preventing that person from looking beyond himself and understanding the world in an objective way. The windows are the opportunities to see the world from different perspectives in an unbiased and unprejudiced manner. This quote can also be interpreted by thinking of the mirrors as an uneducated person who does not grasp anything but instead reflects or rejects everything that is provided.
The education does not only mean the formal education gained in schools and universities. A person should never mistake knowledge for wisdom because one helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life. Being a good citizen of the world is part of education, not only that, education also allows one to have open debates and get access to the ideologies and philosophies of others. According to Aristotle, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”. Education encourages acceptance of relativism and pluralism or many-sidedness. Education is really aimed at helping students to reach a state where they can introspect themselves and learn on their own using their discretion .
Be it a doctor, a scientist, a football player or even a businessman, regardless of their work, they all have one thing in common, they all have gone through a process of systematic and relative study which is connected to the set of work they do. This study is nothing but education; sure, there are different methods of learning for every profession, but they all have turned their mirrors into windows for their subject through education. Now, what does that mean? A scientist was once asked to kick a soccer ball to score a goal, but due to no knowledge and practice to do so he not only failed to score but also ended up with a broken toe. Let’s be more analytical in this situation, to be precise, he had a mirror in his mind which showed him his own belief of the way a soccer ball is kicked, that belief was not logical in soccer education, this mirror of belief needs to be changed through the process of education which in this case is soccer training.
Many examples exist in our society which clearly show that the only solution to almost all of the problems and sufferings is education. The existence of misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia and racism in the 21st century is also an example of the lack of proper education. Even many so-called graduates from reputed universities can be considered uneducated if the sorting is done on the basis of the true form of education. For this, solely education system is not responsible and the main culprit is the society. Because willingly or unwillingly the society contributes as a major source of education for a child. The education gained from the conditioning of society and parents could be good or bad but mostly it is worst. So the child ends up believing in many inhuman mentalities. Education eradicates any orthodox superstitious rituals and beliefs from the society.
With the passage of time there has been a lot of adulteration in the paradigm of education which has caused the demolition of education from being the purpose of life to some job criterion. The beauty of education lies in its ability to show us the world as it is, not the world which our own illogical and immature mirror has created. Furthermore, it gives us the ability to make it better. Believe it or not but we would still have been living in caves if there was no education, one would have died even due to common cold if there was no medical science. It is often said that, “necessity is the mother of invention”; education gave us the vision to identify our necessity, it gave us the ability to make this world a better place. The purpose of education is rigorously unfolded in a Sanskrit Shloka which is-
विद्यां ददाति विनयं, विनयाद् याति पात्रताम्।
पात्रत्वात् धनमाप्नोति, धनात् धर्मं ततः सुखम्॥
True knowledge gives discipline, from discipline comes worthiness,
from worthiness one gets wealth, from wealth one does good deeds,
And from that comes joy.
