Education

Education is a term that can refer to both the act of learning and the skills and knowledge gained through the process of learning. Education can be divided into two main varieties: formal education and informal education.

Formal education is organized teaching and training; it is the application of pedagogy, a body of theoretical and applied research relating to teaching and learning. This is usually done through schools, universities, colleges and other institutions.

The term informal education may be used to refer all learning that occurs outside the context of a formal educational program. Those who teach get the sort of education traditionally associated with schools and universities under their own direction are called autodidacts. There are many who choose not to send their children to schools, instead giving them a homeschool education, or sometimes even a very non-traditional education through unschooling.

The reasons given for getting an education or requiring that others are educated are plentiful. Learning skills can be vital for certain types of employment, and even education in the humanities is often done for the reason that it demonstrates a mental agility, an ability to creatively solve problems that many in the business world find attractive. Many people learn for learning's sake: because a subject is interesting even if it has no practical or commercial application. Socities often require that a child be given an education to prepare him for citizenship and for employment. Education can be a public benefit in as much as it prevents people from engaging in destructive acts.

Education can also be for perhaps less savory purposes: political or religious indoctrination. The power of educational institutions to influence people's minds has been used by cults and by totalitarian states to push their ideology and beliefs without any question.