Origin
The tenth-century book Nahj Al-Balagha (originally in Arabic) is the first recorded occurrence of the phrase (opinion) “Knowledge is power” from Imam Ali (599 – 661 CE). He said:
“Knowledge is power and it can command obedience. A man of knowledge during his lifetime can make people obey and follow him and he is praised and venerated after his death. Remember that knowledge is a ruler and wealth is its subject.”
Sir Francis Bacon coined the phrase (latin) “Scientia est Potestas” (Knowledge is Power) in 1597 and variations of the phrase have since been uttered and attributed to poets and philosophers alike. Predictably, the phrase has become cliché and betrays a lack of original thought.
If knowledge is power, education is the basic prerequisite for self-development, associated confidence and, ultimately, a sense of self-control (power). On a societal level, education promotes participation (exchange of ideas), greater development, and increased achievement (power).
In the pursuit of educational excellence, more so now than ever before, curricula content is extensive. Extra-curricular tuition, originally devised to support students that required additional attention, is now a means to provide additional attention to curricula content for the purpose of advantage. Assessment rubrics are designed to determine the knowledge and skills of students, but provide a poor measure of understanding, ability and potential – the very results that accurately indicate the success or failure of an education.
In Reality…
The practical reality of such an education, whether theoretically designed for excellence or for educational equality, fails dismally. Teachers are bound by a curriculum that, due to extensive content and the obligation to complete same within the academic year, requires pedagogy be directive instead of facilitative. Students are encouraged to learn as much information as they can remember, and are assessed according to evidence that does not require understanding but, rather, good memorisation skills and test-taking ability.
The result of this dire reality is that teachers are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content that affects lesson planning, pedagogy, and assessment, the administration (management) of which requires time and focus at the cost of facilitative teaching, giving way to the more time-efficient practice of instruction (what to do and how to do it). In turn, students become dependent on teachers for instruction, losing both their natural curiosity and ability to think for themselves as they focus on the skills required to navigate the predictable demands of the system in their pursuit for good grades instead of knowledge.
Rote memory can give you basic facts and figures that you may remember for a short time, but you may be likely to forget these with disuse. To truly learn something, you must generally be able to make connections to your past experiences and the world around you. Without that context, the facts you are memorizing may remain just facts, dates, vocabulary, or numbers. They may not represent true knowledge.
Finally, parents who value a good education for their child(ren) also, to varying degrees, see their child(ren) as an extension of themselves and, ultimately, a reflection of their personal repute and parenting ability. Ergo, (mis)understanding an extensive curriculum to be an ideal, and with limited understanding of the reality (as described above), parents manage poor (albeit inaccurate) assessments of their child(ren) by giving additional attention to the child(ren)’s homework and / or additional lessons. Research has shown that there is little, if any, correlation between homework and academic achievement; and, while extra-curricular tuition may well provide additional exposure to, and practise of, information, it also undermines confidence, potential and natural ability. Extra lessons simply perpetuate the concept that anything less than academic excellence is failure, the concomitant connotations alluding to below average intelligence.
The most detrimental effect of such a stringent and ineffective education is the number of students that are failed by the system. Taught how to learn and what to think instead of how to think (to learn), they leave school with an abundance of academic information and the ability to exercise same within an academic-oriented environment, but with limited experience of critical thinking – the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skilfully conceptualizing, applying, analysing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.
This phenomenon suggests that, perhaps, knowledge is not power but, rather potential power. In other words, knowledge is not measured by what is stored in the head (information), but by productivity, ie. what we do / don’t do with the information. The worldwide web is an infinite source of information from which you can gather facts that are conceptually coherent and personally relevant to yourself. It is only when that information is applied to create a tangible result that it becomes power.
Food for thought.
Until next time!