‘Training’ is NOT a Bad Word

No Comments | by Gray Rinehart | Posted on January 25, 2012

Let's see if I can get in a little trouble today.

Over the past few months, our unit at the university has been having an internal debate over whether we provide "training" or "education" to our clients.

The distinction between the two, as I understand it, is a matter of practicality. Training gives us skills and techniques we can practice, hopefully with enough knowledge to know when and where they will be useful. Education, meanwhile, gives us new knowledge and insights, and a better understanding of the world. When I taught CPR, I trained my students in how to apply the life-saving methods; when I taught leadership and management, I educated my students about different aspects of and approaches to the two.

(You're never too old to teach or too young to learn. Or vice-versa.)

Back to the debate we've been having: At a meeting last year, one of my colleagues showed a tag cloud she made of comments from our clients and "training" was the largest word in the cloud (i.e., had been used by clients most often). Immediately, a discussion started about how we might change that perception and the relative worth of one versus the other. The discussions have been interesting. From what I've observed, on one side of the debate are folks who came from industry and say of course we provide training. On the other, folks who grew up in the academy tend to downplay the T-word in favor of education. In the middle, folks who have spent time in both camps lean one way or the other, depending on how deeply they've immersed themselves in the campus culture.

Color me unimpressed by the whole thing, and firmly on the side of training.

I admit, I started out with my share of the "we're-the-university-so-of-course-we-educate" mindset. But recently I've been studying and refining a model of how we at the Industrial Extension Service should fit into the academic side of the university, and after thinking about it I've (to borrow a phrase) come to the dark side.

The way I see it, education and training are two sides of the same coin: teaching. Both imply the delivery of knowledge -- or at least information -- from a person who has it to a person who needs it. I've flipped that metaphorical coin a few times and come up with what I see as major differences between training courses and classroom education:

   
From that perspective, our IES courses and services fit much more into "training" while the university's more general offerings are clearly "educational." And that's okay! In the end, it's all teaching.

Finally, on the Internet I found an interesting paper on the subject of education versus training, which included this amusing item:

Think of it this way. If your sixteen-year-old daughter told you that she was going to take a sex education course at high school, you might be pleased. What if she announced she was going to take part in some sex training at school? Would that elicit the same response? Training is doing. Training improves performance.

So I say: of course we train people (though, not in sex). And if we educate folks at the same time -- and we often do -- that's a bonus.

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Image Credit: Lifelong Learner - Nazareth College, Rochester, NY by NazarethCollege, on Flickr, under Creative Commons.