What's the difference between education and organizing?
This question came up in my Democracy and Education class last semester and is essential to where I choose to focus my energy in the future. I think I primarily agree with with Myles Horton in We Make the Road by Walking, that education is superior to organizing because organizing is goal-driven, and can therefore easily be hijacked and people manipulated to achieve the goal. Education, on the other hand, is focused on developing individual potential, with respect for the individual:
"I'd say if you were working with an organization and there's a choice between the goal of that organization, or the particular program they're working on, and educating people, developing people, helping them grow, helping them become able to analyze - if there's a choice, we'd sacrifice the goal of the organization for helping the people grow, because we think in the long run it's a bigger contribution." (Myles Horton)
It's tricky, though. In the first place, how do you ever expect to change the educational system without organizing? We can try to educate individuals within specialized institutions, but the mass culture of education is what really needs to be changed. And organizing can be educational if done right. There are probably many who would argue that the type of organizing which sacrifices individual development for a general goal is not true organizing. Public Achievement tries to be this "true" type of organizing... recognizing that the process is more important than the goal.