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KNOWING ABOUT AND KNOWING HOW TO DO

(Reprinted from April 1981 PHI DELTA KAPAN)
by Thomas A. Billings

We have confused "edueatiton" and "tratning",
says Mr, Billings, who succinctly discusses
the difference between the two...and the
eoate of our confuston,

It is strange and perhaps tragic that the
two words at the heart of our profession
have became confused. I am referring to
the words "education" and "training." The
profession to which we are committed has
both an "educational" and a "training"
function. Both education and training are
valuable...one no more so than the other.
But the two words are not synonyms; they
designate radically different activities,
processes, techniques, and outcomes. I

am not arguing that "education" and "train-
ing" are mutually exclusive...to be sure,
educative and training efforts frequently
overlap...but they are distinguishable
enterprises. Our profession and the pub-
lic we serve must umerstand the two enter-
prises fully or risk failure in both areas.

We might begin to focus on the differences
- between education and training in this way:
Education is the activity (or process) that
permits us to "know about" something...the
level of knowledge the Greeks called
gnosis. Training is the activity (ar pro-
cess) that permits us to "do something",
the Greeks called this level of knowledge
techne. Education leads to comprehension
and understanding; training leads to can-
petence, to the ability to do something, to
manipulative skill.

A person may be well educated but poorly
trained. For example, I may know a great
deal about King Lear, Prince Hamlet, ard
Willy Loman, but that knowledge only
means I "know about" them; it does not
mean that I am able to "do" anything. It
certainly doesn't mean that I can write a

 

play. Being a playwright is as much a
skill and craft as it is an art; reading
all the plays ever written will not, in
itself, prepare one for the craft of

writing plays,

Or I may "know about" biology, physiology,
neurology, and anatomy yet be quite un-
prepared to practice surgery. In order
to "do samething" with my knowledge of
these matters, I must submit myself to
years of "training" in medical school,
where I master the techne of surgery.
Indeed, medical training is built on the
shoulders of broad understanding of the
sciences, but skill in medical applica-
tion does not follow automatically or
mechanically from a broad comprhension of
biology... I may be content simply to
"know about" biology; I may never hanker
after the skills that would permit me to
"do something" with it.

Of course a person may be both well
trained and well educated. My brother is
a heavy equipment operator in Oregon; he
Operates a land-moving machine. He has
remarkable skill in manipulating this
colossus into and out of the Oregon moun-
tains and valleys, rearranging vast tracts
of land. His skill permits him to "do
something"; namely, move mountains. In
his case, he also "knows about" his mach-
inery having graduated from the Univer-
sity of Oregon in mathematics and physics.
But he is a rarity among the construction
workers. Others, who manipulate their
machines nearly as well, know virtually
nothing about structural steel, stress
and strain, blueprints, internal combus-
tion, or the ecological problems inherent
in moving mountains and building dams and
bridges. My brother knows about such mat-
ters, and his knowledge serves him well.
But he could manipulate his huge earth mov-
er without that knowledge.

Our schools should both educate and train
our young. Because it is much simpler to |
measure what a person can "do" than it is