The place called school

THE PLACE CALLED SCHOOL

Places that over the centuries have come to be known as school is a formal setting with paid teachers, lecturers, professors, administrative staff and various heads of department. The idea of a school in the minds of a majority is so formal that the term school should not be used if there is no room with at least ten people paying close attention to a professor in a setting having a board, projector and either of chalk or board markers. Many have also come to associate the word school with dressing up properly and formerly before moving out of the house to attend it. To a lot more, there cannot be school without examinations where sheets of question papers and answer booklets are shared. In fact the notion of a certificate coming from only a school has made the definition  of education so narrow that a lot of people think they are not educated until they get a certificate from a “school”.

The true and untarnished idea of school is any opportunity to learn. Learning is the key goal of the place called school. The opportunity to learn may come in a formal or informal setting. The fanciful idea of an air conditioned room with several people seated and listening attentively to a teacher may not always be the case when it comes to the place called school. The full extent of the place called school is so broad that it can cause learning to happen on the go. A good understanding of a subject matter is made possible through the interaction of two major factors, a willing student and a committed teacher. The moment these two factors can meet and have an understanding of what is expected from them,  a school is formed. In making a strong point for the untarnished definition of a place called school, cognizance must be taken of its objectives and goal. The ultimate aim of the place called school starts and ends with the inculcation of applicable knowledge.

In formal settings, the place called school has broken down the process of learning into appreciable stages and phases. This makes the learning process structured and amazingly effective. The way and manner in which the learning program is drawn in a formal setting gives credence to its pervasive drag on all caste in the society. The school under the formal settings would do two things. First, it will condition learners or students to imbibe and know the various aspects of what need to be learnt and secondly, it will gauge the depth to which learning or knowledge acquisition has taken place. In the formal setting of the place called school, many of the solid foundations in various areas of human knowledge can be properly and effectively laid. It has even got to the extent that deeper and thorough knowledge of various subject matters can be acquired through higher degrees or certifications. The formal setting of the place called school is so organized that it has been dubbed, institutions of learning. The secular world puts a lot of premium on the type of learning that occurs in the formal settings of the place called school. A lot of money in the billions are spent every year on the learning that goes on in the formal setting of place called school.

On yet another plane, there is the informal place that is still a school. It does not have the organization and allure of the formal setting but it is a school all the same. This setting may not have the paid teachers of the formal setting but it does have its own teachers. The informal place the school occupies is and still remains one of the most powerful and potential tool in the journey to mastering skills that are relevant to living in modern society. In the informal setting of the school, there may or may not be rules, there may or may not be a class, there may or may not be certificate to be given at the end of the learning program. The only thing that the informal setting of the school shares with the formal, is the presence of a “teacher”. In the formal setting, the teacher is called a lecturer, a professor or a teacher all the same. In the informal setting, the teacher is called several names ranging from mentor to facilitator.  The school in the informal setting places serious premium on hands on practice and the gathering of invaluable experience. The school run under the informal setting imparts tangible skills in a real world. The informal school is so raw and undiluted that it will quickly filter out the lazy learners from the serious ones. The school run informally abhors mediocrity and insists on getting and mastering the right way of doing things. In the informal setting of the school there is no grading with distinction or pass. The only way performance is measured in the informal setting is by performance and expertise. The informal school will not stop pushing until learners in the system master their chosen area of expertise. In this setting, the learners may pay for being taught or the organization training the learners may pay them stipends. The place called school in the informal setting can occur even at home with parents as coaches or mentors. There is absolutely no limit to how learning can occur.

The least favoured and most daring school is the self-taught school.  In the self-taught setting, the learner teaches himself. History is filled with stories of men and women who taught themselves how to do what they do effectively. The self-taught school has discipline, determination and doggedness as its slogan, statutes and standard. In this school, the only learner is the student and the teachers are books and other relevant materials. This type of school has homes, study rooms, libraries and many places of solitude as its physical venue where the learning process takes place. This school has churned out great scientists like Isaac Newton, Herman Hollerith, Charles Babbage, Blaise Pascal, Albert Einstein and a host of others. It is even on record that Benjamin Franklin, an American statesman was self-schooled and did not go  to any formal school. The self-taught school is the school that all professionals and skilled people cannot graduate from. Learning as a continuous process is facilitated a great deal by the self-taught school. The need to update knowledge and acquire the tricks of doing things in a better way can be done effectively by learning them on one’s own. There is no law banning the self-learner but the law definitely prosecutes quacks. Thus, the self-taught school in all its might need some form of the formal and informal school settings to solidify skills and expertise learnt.

The place called school is so broad that it lends a beautiful and interesting meaning to the goal of learning. Thus, there is no excuse for not learning. Even the poorest of the poor can learn. It all depends on how the process of learning would take place. Every day, the term school is increasing in its coverage as a means of imparting applicable knowledge and it is a place where the possibilities of learning anything knows no bound.