The Difference Between Learning and Education

Let’s do a small imagination exercise.

You have in your hand a bucket full of water and in front of you a bunch of empty 0,5 l bottles. In order to fill them all you’ve got two possibilities: You can either fill them one by one, or you can throw water over them all, hoping they will “catch” a few drops.
If you want this task to be easy you can very well choose the second option, but if you want to be conscientious and fill all the bottles don’t limit your time, expect the task to be hard and pay attention to the details.

What’s the point of this exercise?

To get a better understand of the difference between learning and education.

Information has gained momentum all around you. Combined with speed and communication tools you have to move fast in order to remain up to date with everyone and everything that’s happening and then start taking notice of all the analyses of the question “why is it happening”. It seems like it’s emphasizing too much on learning, right? And I’m not saying it’s wrong, but there are too many empty bottles around me and maybe around you too.
On the other hand there’s education. Yes, education is harder than learning. There’s a greater need here for a more straightforward personal relationship.

[Tweet “Education demands time and sacrifice.”]

It’s a lot easier to start learning marketing (books, internet, conferences, etc.) than to be WORTHY of being educated by a marketer (not a marketing professor who studied marketing for 30 years without even a failed campaign). And the same can be said for every other field.

I would like to see more people around me who are educated in a field not just taught.

And in the end, that’s the difference between a professor/teacher and a leader.