Sumber ilustrasi: Magnific
12 Mei 2026 09.44 WIB – Akar
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Desanomia [12.05.2026] What if the thought experiment is expanded into education and systems of education? What will we obtain? If we are allowed to imagine the situation within these two communities, the picture may look something like this:
In the first community, education grows as part of collective life. Children learn by living within the community itself: observing, imitating, helping, listening to stories, following customs, and gradually understanding the way of life of the group. Knowledge is not separated from everyday life. Learning about farming takes place in the fields, learning about speech takes place in conversation, and learning about ethics takes place through direct involvement in social relations.
Because of that, education in the first community mainly aims to form human beings who are capable of living together with their community. What is important is not primarily mastery of abstract theory, but the ability to read social situations, respect relationships, understand customs, and know how to maintain the continuity of collective life. A person is considered “educated” when capable of taking a place within the network of communal life.
Knowledge in the first community usually lives within collective memory. Teachers are not mainly formal institutions, but people who possess experience and social recognition. Parents, elders, craftsmen, farmers, fishermen, or community figures become the center of knowledge transmission. Education takes place continuously without a strict boundary between learning and living.
The development of education in the first community tends to proceed slowly but organically. Knowledge changes according to the life experience of the community. Because transmission mainly occurs through direct relationships, changes in knowledge depend heavily upon generational continuity and the stability of the community itself.
In the second community, education develops in a different direction. Because problems are faced through the creation of tools and systems, education is directed toward producing technical, analytical, and methodological capabilities. Knowledge is separated from individual experience and standardized into curriculum, academic disciplines, methods, and teaching procedures.
Schools then become the primary institution. Learning no longer mainly takes place through direct involvement in life itself, but through special spaces designed to transmit knowledge systematically. Writing, numbers, diagrams, laboratories, and archives become the center of education. Knowledge is treated as something that can be stored, tested, replicated, and continuously developed.
The purpose of education in the second community is not only to form members of the community, but to produce human beings capable of operating, repairing, and creating systems. Because of that, the capacity for abstraction becomes extremely important. A person is considered advanced when capable of understanding principles, methods, and technologies that go beyond direct everyday experience.
The development of education in the second community takes place very rapidly because knowledge no longer depends entirely upon human memory. Discoveries can be recorded, transmitted, re-tested, and developed across generations without requiring people to live within the same community. Universities, research centers, libraries, and information networks become machines for the accumulation of knowledge.
As a result, a fundamental difference emerges in the character of education. Education in the first community tends to produce human beings who are strong relationally and contextually. Education in the second community tends to produce human beings who are strong technically and systemically. One educates human beings to live within the community; the other educates human beings to build and manage the instruments of life.
These differences also influence the relationship between knowledge and life. In the first community, knowledge is almost inseparable from the practice of living. In the second community, knowledge gradually becomes a separate field that can develop far beyond the everyday life experience of ordinary society.
As explained in parts 1 and 2, it may therefore be said that the development of education actually reflects the direction of civilization itself. When education still mainly takes place through collective life, society moves through social relations. When education transforms into an institution for the production of knowledge and tools, society moves toward a world that becomes increasingly systemic, technological, and organized through instruments.
As for yourself, were you born from one of these models of education? What do you think? (njd)
Note: This article was made as part of a dedicated effort to bring everyday life around us to our minds.
