Dr. Mortimer J. Adler states: “schooling is not education, but just a path to education.” That is right, I do support his opinion and, for the purpose of this article, I will add more ingredients to his sophisticated and civilized idea. Thanks again to you.

As a law and advanced English student, I am taught to unconditionally follow the set principles and system of my academic world. What I am talking about is to target the Cambodian academic mindset and this would not be applicable in other corners of the world or it may.

I am, by my lecturers, supposed to accept what they say as true, what already stipulated in Cambodian legislative instrument as perfect and whenever I challenge these tactics, I am always negatively criticized by both the lecturers and students. But these never discourage me, and it is from this lesson that an innovative initiate has stepped into my mind: “lesson forgotten to be taught in school.”

Schooling is not just about following what our lecturers say and the written information in the hard copies (text books, course books, exercise books, newspaper and other media), but it is also about what our lecturers fail or hesitate to say, about should we challenge our lecturers and the print hard copies: these are referred to as “lessons for forgotten to be taught in school.”

I believe what Dr. Mortimer J. Adler says, because I believe that if we blindly follow the schooling system, we would not be able to be whole-life learner, innovative or creative researcher, have our own social pride, and contribute to our society. I believe that we are born in a more informative world, this means our decision would be more sophisticated and influential in a long-term basis.

To me, learning is about “all.” This means that we are not just supposed to learn the positive things, but we are also supposed to learn about negative things, so we can distinguish what is truly moral and truly immoral. This is one of the negative aspects that I found in teaching and learning biography of any national or world hero. Students are just shown about the positive image of the heroes, but negative aspects of the heroes are not revealed at all. Teachers or lecturers seem to say, “there is no negative aspects behind the heroes, just follow everything the heroes did, if you want to be like them.”

High school students as well as university students are supposed to accept what the teachers or lecturers say as true and challenging them would mean immoral or disrespect. To blindly believe them alone is not a true education, but if concrete reasons are laid behind such the belief, we will have heartfelt and down-to-earth belief as well as genuine education.

Do not just blindly what your teachers or lecturers say, we are human too who is supposed to create new thing (invent), lay reasons behind our beliefs and even put more ingredient to make what our teachers or lecturers or heroes say, tastier for our and the next generations.

Lay Vicheka is a translator for the most celebrated translation agency in the Kingdom of Cambodia, Pyramid Translation Co.Ltd
vichekalayATyahoo.com