What’s education?

As a parent, we tend to be very paranoid when we are looking for the kindergarten for our precious one as it is their first step towards formal education. But before that, have we ever questioned ourselves – What’s the purpose of education?

Human spend at least 11-20 years of their lifetime on formal education but yet everyone has different view on what’s the best education.

Tsunesaburō Makiguchi & Jōsei Toda (Co-Founder of Soka Kyoiku Gakkai, later renamed to Soka Gakkai International) really impressed me with their “System of Value-Creating Pedagogy,” which is based on the principles of Value-Creating Education.

They both proposed that the main purpose of education is to provide an education for “The Happiness of Children”. In other words, it is to discover self-potential; to unleash value; to identify the right from wrong; to support & protect justice; be responsible for our life; dialogue with others and to have a harmonious life. Teaching and guiding this method of life is the mission of an educator. <pq. 121, 孩子！我们爱你〉

As to obtain the abilities above, Toda Sensei included the ability to give presentations, to observe, to exercise will power, as well as the strengths to understand, to memorize and to reason.