Education and Life's Meaning

Abstract

There are deep connections between education and the question of life's meaning, which derive, ultimately, from the fact that, for human beings, how to live-and therefore, how to raise one's children-is not a given but a question. One might see the meaning of life as constitutive of the meaning of education, and answers to the question of life's meaning might be seen as justifying (a particular form of) education. Our focus, however, lies on the contributory relation: our primary purpose is to investigate whether and how education might contribute to children's ability to find meaning in life or at least deal with the question. This issue is not only theoretically interesting (though relatively neglected)-it also has practical urgency. For people have a need for meaning that, if unfulfilled, leads to personal and potentially social crises-a need that often expresses itself first and strongly in adolescence; and there are reasons to have doubts about the contribution of today's traditional formal education system to the meaningfulness of children's (and future adults') lives. We argue for the importance of frameworks of values, as well as for a greater emphasis on the affective dimension of meaning, though we reject pure subjectivism. The underlying purpose of this article, however, is not to argue for a particular comprehensive position, but to persuade philosophers of education of the importance of the issue of life's meaning in thinking about education today.

Education and Meaning in Life

“…In previous work (Schinkel, De Ruyter, and Aviram 2016), we distinguished two dimen sions of meaning in life, namely a descriptive cognitive and a valuative cognitive-emotion al dimension. The first we can concisely describe as the idea that people have meaning in life when their own life, as well as the environment in which they live, makes sense to them-their life has a certain coherence and they understand the world around them to the level that they can meaningfully interact with others (p. 494) and the cultural and nat George and Crystal Park (2016), we agree that it is helpful to divide the valuative dimen sion into two distinct aspects, namely purpose and significance or mattering.…”

Conceptualisation of the Meaningful Life Among Rural and Urban Young People

“…the most important thing in life is: do what you like, realize yourself (12), feel the most, try, experience (12), fun, entertainment, joy (7), happiness (6), adventure, fun moments (4).…”

“…A. Schinkel, D. de Ruyter, A. Aviram (2016) highlight the connection between meaning of life, fundamental values and the educational system. A number of scientific empirical studies have been carried out that examine the factors of the meaning of life amongst students (Nell, 2014); the meaning of life perceived by bachelor students, personal development and professional self-improvement, relating them with professional vocation (Duffy et al, 2014); there is a search for a connection between the meaning of life of young people, life satisfaction and suicidal actions (Kress et al 2015); A qualitative survey of homeless young people in the United States demonstrates the impact of popular culture, the arts, the media on the assessment of the meaning of life and health (Mutere et al, 2014).…”

Learned ignorance: Opposing the scientificising hegemony through Santos, Pope and Hamilton

“…The current hegemony constraining educational experience to the instrumental determinants of its usefulness to economic growth, employability, capitalistic economic systems, and how this threatens education, the humanities and democracy, has prompted highly critical responses (Biesta, 2010; Collini, 2012; McGettigan, 2013; Nussbaum, 2010). The struggle against the axiological shifts involved in marketising education, in philosophically and in some cases literary‐orientated discourse, often reaches back to the pre‐Socratics, Aristotle, Plato, Eastern philosophies and more recent philosophers including, Arendt, Dewey, Freire, Levinas, Marcuse, Nietzsche, Rorty, Wittgenstein and even the novelist and essayist, Robert Musil (Clarke, 2018; Kennedy, 2014; Mahon, 2017; Miller, 2007; Schinkel et al., 2016; Todd, 2015; Tubbs, 2013; Wringe, 2015). Such diverse critiques provide a rich variety of alternatives to the present‐day educational status quo, in arguing, for example, for the value of wonder (Hove, 1996; Schinkel, 2017) or (and more closely relevant to this discussion) the modesty of unknowing (R. Smith, 2016).…”