Honor

In an age where some companies are only hiring people with college degrees, even for things like sorting the mail, I understand that a degree is considered necessary.

Education has always been an asset, but the difference between a degree and an education is widening.

A candle maker teaches her apprentice to make quality candles.  That is an education. A custodian for a building teaches his replacement how to keep the building running smoothly and in good shape.  That is also an education.  Farmers teach their children to run the family farm and send them to school to learn more about agriculture which is both a science and an art.  In all of these cases someone is learning valuable information that they will use to enhance their life and others.

Education is a process where one person imparts knowledge to another.  It begins the first time a mother teaches her child to nurse and continues on in some instances until that child receives a PHD designating her an expert in her field.

People seem to be losing track of this.  Mothers write their children's papers.  Fathers build wings for schools.  The internet sells research papers. And junior gets a degree.  Forgive them, they know not what they do!

Although this may seem like the loving thing to do for a struggling child, it only teaches her what she can't do.  It doesn't prepare anyone for living in the real world.  You can only cheat so long before it catches up with you.  Who among us wants to go to an auto mechanic whose father just bought him a garage full of tools or a doctor whose mother wrote his paper on the cerebral cortex for him when we need brain surgery?

These are extreme examples, but apt.  Education is a process that builds one skill upon another.  If the end is to produce an adult with useful skills, then those steps need to be faithfully adhered to.

There is honor in learning.  It doesn't matter whether it is learning to finger paint, or write a thesis. Let's not teach our children that honor can be bought or finagled.  They deserve more than that.