Education Needs Training

The relative neglect of training by educationists is criticised. It is argued that training is fundamental to many forms of human learning including early moral learning. Training assists learning from early childhood to adulthood and takes different forms at different stages. Training is distinguished from conditioning on the one hand and discovery on the other and it is argued that most of the criticisms of the use of training techniques arise from a misidentification of training with conditioning. Finally, consideration is given to possible cultural and intellectual influences on the current low status of training. Specifically, the influences of the behaviourists and of Rousseau on our present perception of training are discussed. Any explanation has its foundation in training. (Educators ought to remember this.) (Wittgenstein, para. 1967, 419)