This question came up on one of the forums I follow.
Discussions like this come up so frequently, that the only conclusion I can come to is that there is no general agreement on what many words mean. Unfortunately, we use these words constantly to communicate, and we expect the meanings to be shared by those to whom we speak.
Here’s my view (what’s yours?):
I think people tend to conflate learning and education, which are not the same things. Education is a subset of learning, and I would put training as a subset of education (i.e. training is a form of education).
Learning is something we do all the time – we can learn things that are useful or useless, good for us and dangerous. Learning is what we, as humans, /do/. Education, on the other hand is something done to us, sometimes we are willing participants but that is not requisite. Education is something deemed of value to the society in which it takes place (value-laden), whereas learning is value-neutral. Education is often externally motivated, deliberate, and coerced, where-as learning is mostly internally motivated, often coincidental, and completely natural.
Learning vs Education
There is a danger of definitions becoming confining, but my experience has been that that is already the case and understanding what people mean when they say certain words is crucial to applied and interdisciplinary work. I have had people try to tell me that learning and education are the same things (i.e. all learning is education), but if we broaden a definition too far it becomes meaningless (and there’s no point in having two words that mean exactly the same thing). On the other hand many people are already constrained by how they define various terms, and understanding another’s definition can help broaden their horizons. I see this all the time when it comes to ‘games’ vs. ‘sims’ and how the terms are defined in education.
That having been said, as a sub-category of the broader field of education, training tends to be directed towards a specific occupation, job or task and is often skills-based. An education in philosophy is not training.
