Explain education as initiation?

Education as Initiation:

R.S. Peters gave his model of education which gives a better understanding of the concept of education. In the words of R.S. Peters, “Education marks no particular type of transaction between the teachers and the learners, it states criteria to which such transactions have to conform. Education involves processes, that introduce people to what is valuable in an intelligent and valuable manner and that create in a learner desire to achieve it.

It is insufficient to use terms instructions, training or teaching to explain such processes which create a desire in learners to strive for valuable things. Peters uses a term initiation, Which may cover different types of transactions that lead an individual towards what is worthwhile. In the words of Peters, Education is an initiation into what is worthwhile.

Peters has explained that an infant’s consciousness is not capable to differentiate. It is through the initiations into public relations that he learns to name objects, locate his experiences in spatial temporal context, and searches causal and ‘means to end’ categories. Gradually, his awareness develops into wants, beliefs and feelings.

When a newly born child is grown up and initiated into different forms of knowledge like Science, History, Mathematics, Morals and Technological thoughts, he learns to differentiate between things. For example, if a child is born into a vegetarian family, he is taught by the mother, it is immoral to kill animals, for the satisfaction of his taste then child may learn to differentiate between violence and non-violence. So, it is the function of education to initiate this process of differentiation in the right direction.

There are some critics of this theory who object to the notion of education as a transmission of a body of knowledge. Dewey on the other hand claimed that education aims at development of critical thinking, experimentation and problem solving skills.

But it is absolutely impossible to solve the mathematical formula without knowing its formula, or to appreciate the poetry without having an understanding of its meaning. In other words, the cognitive skills of critical thinking, experimentation and problem solving cannot be gained without having learnt some basic body of knowledge.