THE VERY THOUGHT
OF EDUCATION

THE VERY THOUGHT
OF EDUCATION

THE VERY THOUGHT
OF EDUCATION

It is almost impossible to imagine the work of thinking, speaking, listening, reading, and writing without stumbling into the history of one’s education. The very thought directs a timeless affected world. We may be reminded of how uncertain its certainties felt and then turn to the incalculability of its accidents, mistakes, and unmarked events. Then, too, this transference may multiply disreputable education since, more often than not, education and what becomes of learning tend to be symbolically equated with correction, completion, and with the bringing up of culture, knowledge, and life. Even as we fi ght against the ways progress is its watchword, goal, vulnerability, and contention, we may fi nd ourselves falling behind. And when memories such as those we felt we had long ago discarded suddenly ret urn what is i ncomplete in this education, we may fi nd ourselves trying to shrug them off, for, after all, they carry clouds of regret, shame, and even sadness. To wonder how the very thought of this education impresses our desire for meaning, our phantasies of knowledge and the other, our questions of origin and existence, our sense of a profession and its learning, and, from all of this, our relation to the world, imagining this education may fi nd its limit in the capture of compulsory schooling and memories of a child waiting there. It is as if the very thought of education will never let us go beyond what has already happened and so refuses to grow up.

Deborah P. Britzman