6408C13 SHSpec-36 Study and Education

Education is acquiring a knowingness in a subject and an ability to act
in that area. The whole subject of education has, as its end, the
accomplishment of certain doingnesses. Study that doesn't have that intention
is only directed towards acquaintance, dilletantism, or doodle-daddling. That
is not really education. Education is to accomplish certain things with that
subject. If a person is educated in a subject, he can accomplish the results
of that subject because he knows that subject. This is why "education" in
schools isn't really education at all.

You can't really separate education from some role, some professional
doingness, as the end in view. That is the modern quarrel with "education" in
schools. Much is spent to educate students, but they don't get educated.
People don't get educated in arithmetic because it doesn't have an end
product. It could have an end product, but the end product hasn't been
defined or described. In universities, the student is expected to use higher
mathematics to solve problems that could actually be solved with arithmetic,
if arithmetic hadn't been degraded by being thought of as nothing but
groundwork for higher mathematics.

As the purpose of a subject deteriorates or is purported to deteriorate,
the subject itself disappears. If the individual learning the subject has no
purpose for the subject, it will die away in him. A live study is one that
has use. A dead study has no use. You can cause a subject to die away,
either by making its use die away or by omitting its purpose as part of the
educational process. [I.e. not telling students what the subject is for. This
brings to mind the dissemination formula. This is related to the fact that
you need a purpose to study something. Getting a person's ruin and applying
the formula gives him a purpose for looking at the subject of scientology.]

It is possible to become obsessive in the study of some subject that has
no use. In talking about scientology, people will think of it as a subject
only when they see that it has a purpose that is real to them as an attainable
purpose.

For an educational subject to continue to exist, it must have a purpose
that can be seen to be an attainable action to the individual addressed, in
his view. The value of a subject depends upon the value of attaining its
stated purpose. A culture is held together only by education. The
achievement of an education is remunerated to the degree that:

1. Its service is understood to be valuable. This shows that some odd
services are thought to be valuable, e.g. undertaking, which has
survived as a technical line for thousands of years.

2. It is understood. A continuing need for a subject will preserve the
subject, but its technology must be relayed which it will be if it is
needed.

One could destroy a subject by destroying its purpose or by destroying its
technology, or by adding things to its technology that are unnecessary. In
educating a person in a certain subject, the longer it takes to get to the
point of using the subject, the more opportunities there are to fail at it.
This is is the reverse of the too-steep gradient. [Cf. the analogy of the
"runway". If it is too short, you can't take off, but if it is too long, you
are likely to damage the plane on the ruts and stones before you can take
off.]

True knowledge gives correct emphasis. Merely theoretical knowledge will
give a wrong emphasis. This can result in technology getting lost, as would
happen if, for instance, you studied three weeks on how to make E-meter
varnish, and other such matters. Unrealities enter when you teach solutions
to problems that don't exist or when you fail to solve problems that do
exist. By experience, you learn where the problems are. It is hard to teach
a subject with which you have no immediate personal experience. This is one
reason why education gets a bad name, since most professors don't know what
they are talking about. [Those that can, do; those that can't, teach.]

All subjects wind up in a finite doingness. If a subject doesn't wind up
in a finite doingness, a person cannot be educated in that subject. Anything
that winds up in a specific doingness can be educated.

Education in the absence of the mass with which the technology will be
involved is hard on people. It makes them feel squashed, bent, sort of
spinny, bored, exasperated, sort of dead. Pictures of the mass would help.
You would expect the greatest incidence of suicide and illness where people
were studying a subject whose mass was absent. Too steep a gradient gives a
different physiological reaction: a confusion and reelingness. The bypassed
definition gives a blank, washed-out, not-there feeling, followed by a nervous
hysteria. The eventual manifestation of this is a blow from the subject. [For
a summary of these study manifestations, see Fig. 27, below.]

To remedy the absence of mass, supply mass. To remedy the too-steep
gradient, find the last point that was well understood and find the
misunderstood right there or just after. To remedy the misunderstood word get
it defined and used.

FIGURE 27: MANIFESTATIONS OF STUDY PROBLEMS

Absent Mass

1. Squashed feeling.

2. Bent feeling.

3. Feeling sort of spinny.

4. Boredom.

5. Flatness.

6. Peeling sort of dead.

7. Exasperation.

8. Headaches.

9. Stomach aches.

10. Eyes hurting.

11. Dizziness.

Too Steep a Gradient

1. Confusion.

2. Reelingness.

Bypassed Definition

1. Blank, not-there, washed-out feeling.

2. Followed by a nervous hysteria.

3. Followed by a blow from the subject. This is the final
manifestation.

Gradients are more involved with doingness, though they do hang off in
the subject of significance. But it is the action that we are interested in.

The misunderstood word is the most important thing in establishing
someone's doingness. The restoration of doingness depends only on getting the
misunderstood word defined and understood, though to do well or with talent
may vary from person to person. A person, say, doesn't know a word in
psychology, so he can't move over into scientology. The misunderstood word
opens the gate to education, so it is the most important aspect of study
tech.