[In-person] Curiosity Café – Education

Few people would deny that education is important, but what counts as education, and what is it really for? Should we think about education as a mostly practical matter concerned with filling heads with knowledge and preparing people for a job market? Or should education be more about growing and developing into a better or more complete version of oneself? Or should it be about something else entirely?

Whatever we think education is ultimately for, we can ask whether the institutes of education we tend to associate most with education — schools, colleges, universities, and the like — are best set up to achieve those goals. However, a lot of the education we receive in life takes place outside of the walls of a school, as well. What, then, are the people, groups, or institutions that educate us throughout our lives outside of school, and what should education look like in these contexts?

At our next Curiosity Cafe, we’ll discuss all things education, including such questions as:

• What does it mean to “educate” ourselves or others?
• What is education for? How does an idealized view of education map on to our own educational experiences?
• Should education be more about transforming learners into something new, or developing them as the people they are?
• What institutions besides schools educate people? Should different institutions be responsible for different aspects of education?
• What does education look like after you’ve graduated? Do we ever reach a point in life when we can consider our education to be complete?

Space is limited! Please obtain a “Pay-What-You-Can” ticket from Curiosity Café at this link (click here) to attend this event. You need a ticket to be admitted. See the above link for more info about tickets and other options including a limited number of free tickets. Come and hang out with us, grab food, and read through our handout from 6-6:30pm. Our structured discussion will run from 6:30-8:30pm with a 10 minute break in the middle.

Hope to see you there!

[The image is an 1893 painting called *The Banjo Lesson *by African-American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner.]

__________________________________________________________________________

This event is brought to you by Being and Becoming, a Toronto based non-profit. We aim to create community around exploring everyday concepts and experiences so that we may live more intentional, thoughtful, and meaningful lives. We use philosophy as a tool with which we can come to a richer understanding of the world around us.

By offering activities, spaces, and other opportunities for conversation and co-exploration, we hope to enable the meeting and fusion of individuals and their ideas. Everyone is welcome, regardless of background: indeed, we believe the journey is best undertaken alongside explorers from a variety of disciplines, cultures, backgrounds, and experiences.

Find out more about Being and Becoming here.

About the Curiosity Café Series:

For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to join us at our Curiosity Cafés and are wondering what they’re all about: every two weeks, we invite members of our community to come out to the Madison Avenue Pub to engage in a collaborative exploration of our chosen topic. Through these events, we aim to build our community of people who like to think deeply about life’s big questions, and provide each other with some philosophical tools to dig deeper into whatever it is we are most curious about.