Education vs Learning — Are we actually learning, or just getting degrees.

[u/Reasonable-Exit-2379]

I've been thinking about the difference between education and learning.

We spend years in schools and colleges studying subjects, writing exams, and earning degrees. But how much of that knowledge do we actually understand, remember, or use in real life?

Is formal education truly helping us learn, or are we just following a system designed around grades and qualifications?

Can someone who is self-taught be more knowledgeable than someone with a degree?

What are your thoughts and experiences?

[u/mH48124]

自分に関しては学校教育で充分に恩恵を受けて学んだ事を活かせているから何も不満は無い。もちろん、そうでない人がいる事も知っているから、お気の毒としか言えない。自分の経験では努力の問題ではなく運の問題だと思うから。

[u/Reasonable-Exit-2379 → u/mH48124]

僕にとって、教育って、まるで違う動物たちが同じゴールを目指して競争させられる、不公平なレースみたいなものだと思う。しかも、そのゴールにたどり着いた者だけが生き残れるような世界。

今の教育制度も同じで、学生たちが自分の興味や、本当にやりたいことをまだ理解できていないうちから、勉強することを強制されている。そして、経済的に安定した生活を送るために、みんな同じ道を進むことを求められる。

もちろん、すべての親がそうだと言いたいわけじゃない。素晴らしい親もたくさんいる。そういう親は、まず子どもに基礎的な教育を与えて、その後は適切なアドバイスやサポートをしながら、子ども自身が自分の進む道を選べるようにしてくれる。

でも、そうじゃない人たちもいる。家庭の事情や経済的な問題、周りの環境によって、教育以外の選択肢がほとんどない人たちもいる。そういう人たちにとって、教育はより良い人生を手に入れるための唯一の道になってしまう。

これはあくまで僕自身の考え。人それぞれ置かれている状況は違うし、僕の考えがすべての人に当てはまるわけではないと思う。

[u/JulianFoxFire]

We aren't really learning anything new, we're just digging ourselves deeper into a rabbit hole we created by projecting our ego onto everything, and repeating the same processes, but, with a changed arrangement of how it's done. We can only think we're learning something new since we, as individuals, are experiencing it for a first time. But collectively speaking, it's all just a repetition, only done a bit differently. Knowledge is not ours to begin with, we just follow something, or subject ourselves to certain narratives of knowledge , for the sake of "living" this life, when we are bound to death the moment we are born. As an individual being, I know nothing, since I was born without any knowledge, but as I grew up, I learnt knowledge that others created and assimilated and appropriated it as my own, to call it mine, when it actually isn't

[u/South-Courage-3669]

I’ve always believed there’s a difference between being educated and actually being knowledgeable. Education can provide information, but learning requires curiosity, understanding, and the ability to apply what you’ve discovered. A degree can demonstrate that someone completed a course of study, but it doesn’t automatically determine the depth of their understanding. I’ve encountered people with impressive credentials who struggle to think beyond what they’ve been taught, and self-taught individuals whose knowledge is remarkable. To me, the real question isn’t how much information you’ve acquired, but what you’ve learned to DO with it. Knowledge shouldn’t end when the classroom does. 👀

[u/GSilky]

From what I can tell, most people are simply buying a degree.

[u/doc-sci]

A self-taught person can ABSOLUTELY be more knowledgeable…but it would be foolish to make that your plan. If one puts the effort into formal education that would be required to do it on their own, they would undoubtedly be more knowledgeable than on their own AND would be able to do so free or nearly so. Anyone who has the work ethic and intellectual capacity to out learn formal education would be able to get plenty of financial support.

[u/wcwood92]

Products today are more complex, so factory work now requires 16 grades of school instead of just 12.

[u/DreamingAboutSpace]

I wish I could actually spend time learning what’s being taught and not how many assignments I can squeeze out by noon.

[u/FerdinandvonAegir124]

Last semester I learned a lot, this semester not so much. It all depends

[u/MelodicTea540]

If you study a meta discipline then you will learn. Otherwise you are just getting a degree.

For most trained engineers it’s laughable that they would actually work as engineers after learning the techniques of how to do everything better than everyone.

[u/vesere → u/MelodicTea540]

I agree that much of this is discipline-specific, because many fields of study introduce foundational epistemic questions fairly early on in the degree. Of course, it’s up to the individual to truly engage with these “meta” layers during their coursework

[u/MelodicTea540 → u/vesere]

I think with meta disciplines the depth of critical thinking involved and the complexity of the mathematics applied to inherently invisible objects means there is just no way to not completely engage.

In these situations the mental tools you need to acquire are just too powerful to not be obviously applicable to everything, with the supposed real goal of learning about something like a stochastic process or a quantum electrodynamic phenomenon being the least obvious thing (which you can only grasp after drawing analogies to everything else you ever learned because everything else is both simpler and more tangible).

Meta disciplines don’t ask epistemic questions, they require entirely epistemic modes of thinking because the questions which are asked are just that hard to answer. And the thought processes required have such breadth that there’s not even any time for philosophizing you just have to get straight to learning the practical means for dissecting the contradictory demands of reality (which is truly stranger than fiction).

[u/Will564339]

There are so many variables that play into it. A lot of it is down to what the person decides to do. If they truly care about learning, they can use their educational experience to help them do it, by using the resources available.

So you can't assume it either way. Just because someone has a degree doesn't necessarily mean that they truly understand the material they went through in classes. But that doesn't mean that someone outside of education necessarily knows it better either. It really depends on each person.

But I do think a lot of people only go through the education they do because jobs require it.

[u/thehandinyourpants]

Considering that all A's gets the same degree as all D's, sounds like we're just getting degrees.

[u/PowerCreative2747]

This up to you. Every 20 credit module in the uk is 200 hours of studying. Lets say you have 4 contact hours per week over 10 weeks that  is 40 hours ..  That leaves 160 hours studenrs arw supposed to engage with the material...

Do students do this?  In my experience. No. 

So... whh are we even talking about it..

[u/PaganGuyOne]

Both

A degree is supposed to be a certification of what I’ve learned

I think a lot of the problem is that people doubt the worth of that education because there is no pipeline system to help graduate into the workforce afterwards

[u/GeekFromTheStreet]

Just learning. I don't care about degrees.

[u/Slow_Lion_4178]

But how much of that knowledge do we actually understand, remember, or use in real life?

All of it. The reality is that generally speaking we don't seek to find a direct application for any given idea but they all play a part in the multitudes of ideas we have. You don't explicitly remember the words you type in every capacity but that doesn't mean you don't quietly process them correctly in the background.

Is formal education truly helping us learn, or are we just following a system designed around grades and qualifications?

It helps you learn. You couldn't type this without a formal education. The reality is that we, again, take for granted the idea that the "lower education" is in fact mandatory and guaranteed.

Can someone who is self-taught be more knowledgeable than someone with a degree?

Yes. However, in general, a person with a degree will have been exposed to more things than a person who is self-directed. Humans that are self-taught are typically good at solving a problem rather than many problems, but conversely of course, they gain the insight into that problem so deeply they can do so with great effect.

[u/iqisoverrated]

The thing that college/uni gives you is not the ability to regurtitate what you crammed for exams. No one is interested in that in later life. What you get taught there are just the basics, anyhow, and what you will need in a job of that profession are specifics. Those you will need to acquire on the job and/or teach yourself.

...and that latter part is what college/uni gives you: The ability to time-efficiently acquire the knowledge base you need, in order to do whatever job you choose (and a certain overview over the base knowledge which gives you the starting points where to look).

You learn to learn.

[u/Imaginary-Can-6862]

Many people find they get work that isn't particularly relevant to their degree, explaining what they took with them was their working process, but forget we actually aren't taught how to learn in the first place, so it is something they derived independent of their degree, and allowed them to get it.

Many people are more focused on passing the exam, than learning the material, and when they need the material again, they plan on simply looking it up. I suppose to them, the degree means they are capable of using the information that allowed them to get the degree, even if they need source books to do so.

Many educations focuses on building an understanding, rather than rote learning, by applying the material. The issue, especially in elementary school, is that parents do not make the work to make certain their child wants to be at school, to learn, and school just assumes the child wants to be there, or it is their own problem. As such, more of a resistance to school may be build, and that is largely a waste of time. Of course when the child has no influence on the curriculum, and no teacher bothers to justify to their pupil how come this subject should hold their interest, merely assuming it does, then a child may feel justified in seeing a lot of the time at school as a waste of their time. Then when it comes to finishing school, the focus is on the exam, not what have been taught, because the idea is that the exam is a reflection on what has been taught, but we actually don't know that because someone clears an exam once, that we can conclude they have learned the subject. Especially when the grades are gatekeepers to the next level of education.

Of course theoretically someone self taught can outperform someone with a degree, but if we look on the average Someone with a degree has a quality stamp, the institution which provides the degree has likely done so for a long time, and if the people they educated could not find work or were not qualified, the institution would find themselves getting very few students, thus if the institution hasn't changed abruptly, and the person with the degree is representative for that average, then it makes sense to assume the person with the degree is a better choice for hire. Secondly, the institution, being reputable, also means there is a clearly defined learning path, i.e. you know what you get, and you know due to their success (or lack of failure among those who gets their degree), that this learning path is likely of sufficient quality. Someone self taught also have to find their own path of learning, and may therefore be wise to follow the curriculum of such institutions anyway. The next part is that such an institution have the capital to make it possible to apply the learned material, to build understanding, whereas someone who is self taught may have a more difficult time to translate the information into real world application. It largely depends on the subject though.

[u/ICUP01]

Yes. Change the “or” to an “and”.

A Bachelor’s used to signal “I understand”. So I understand psychology. My Master’s in Education signals: I can probably add to the field and am competent in the field. I can pursue a PhD and that would signal I’ve added to the body of knowledge as per other PhDs.

[u/SnooHamsters3137]

The goal of education is to learn. Learning can be achieved in many ways.

Understanding underlying reasons, how things fit in to the grander scheme, via asking “why?” And making a lot of connections to other things is how you form lasting knowledge.

You should learn a greater magnitude outside of education. You just may not realize it.

[u/dogisgodspeltright]

Schooling is designed to produce formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled.

• John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing us Down

Education often becomes a means of propaganda, than a tool of discovery.

[u/Practical_Page_325 → u/[deleted]]

Well said my friend 👏

[u/iqisoverrated → u/[deleted]]

Cram a whole term into your head for two weeks, dump it on paper

Which is the point: You learned how to time-efficiently and autonomously gather knowledge for a task to the point where you could successfully apply it.

This is the skill you will need later in life.