exploring a philosophy of education

What is my philosophy of education in a nutshell?

I would put wisdom ahead of knowledge. This I would follow the Tao Te Ching. The Tao Te Ching is a book written in China around 500 B.C. and it is the second most translated book in the world. It begins with the words attributed to Lao Tzu, "The Tao that can be told is not the Tao; and the name that can be named is not the name.
The Tao is dark upon dark, mystery within mystery..."

I do not mean to be obscure or to be ambiguous in this saying that the unknowable is indeed the unknowable. Ludwig Wittgenstein the Western philsopher said nearly the same thing, some 2,500 years later, when he said, at the end of his philosophical treatise,The Philosophical Tractatus, "Whereof one can speak, thereof one must speak clearly, and whereof one cannot speak, thereof must one remain silent."

This to me means knowledge has a limitation - witness what Dr. Faustaus sold his soul to the Devil for knowledge in Goethe's original work. Knowledge per se does not solve anything. We must acknowledge that we are finite beings. I am a finite being.

Values must be the foremost goal to any kind of knowledge. What we yearn to learn must in some way benefit the human race as a whole. For example, having so much investment in Science and Technology seem to me a waste and ultimately mechanictizes life. The disapprortionate investments in the military and the space program seems like to cut off all of one's own limbs except for the right arm. We likewise should not clone a human being until we are pretty damn sure we aren't creating monsters.

These are notes for now. But they are the most fundamental beliefs I have about education. I need a little more time and space to reflect, because as Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." For that, he gave up his life. The least I can do is to give myself a day or two to examine my own life. I am no angel. I don't really think I can ever be one. Think about that for a minute. It is not a threat. It is an attempt at rescue.