Education is a private matter between the person and the world of

Host: The dusk settled like a slow breath over the old train station, its arches stained by time and the ghosts of departures. The air was heavy with the scent of iron, dust, and the faint echo of distant footsteps. A single lamp swung gently above, casting a wavering circle of light over a wooden bench where Jack and Jeeny sat, their faces caught between the orange of evening and the blue of coming night.

Outside, the world moved — trains howled through the dark, each one carrying stories of people seeking meaning, destination, perhaps escape. Inside, silence lingered — not empty, but expectant.

Jack: “Lillian Smith once said, ‘Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with school or college.’”
He said it slowly, as though tasting each word, his voice low and rough. “Beautiful sentiment. But also dangerously naive.”

Jeeny looked at him, her brown eyes catching the soft flicker of the lamp.

Jeeny: “Naive? Or maybe she saw the truth — that education isn’t what we’re told it is. It’s not confined to classrooms or degrees. It’s what happens when the world itself becomes the teacher.”

Jack: “That sounds poetic, but tell me — without schools, without structure — what happens to those who can’t find their way to knowledge on their own? What happens to the child who’s never given the tools to question?”

Host: The train wailed in the distance, a long, sorrowful sound that seemed to echo his question. Smoke drifted through the station, curling around the pillars like thoughts unspoken.

Jeeny: “Tools can be taught anywhere, Jack. Curiosity doesn’t belong to institutions. A child doesn’t need a desk to wonder why the stars shine. She just needs a sky.”

Jack: “And yet, without schools, most wouldn’t even look up.”

Jeeny smiled faintly, the kind of smile that comes before an argument turns tender.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the tragedy — that we’ve taught people to wait for permission to learn.”

Host: The light trembled, flickering over Jack’s face, his expression caught between skepticism and longing. He rubbed his thumb along a crack in the bench, the wood rough beneath his skin.

Jack: “I’m not against curiosity, Jeeny. But education needs order. It needs teachers, methods, evaluation — otherwise it’s chaos. Look at the Enlightenment, look at the Renaissance — knowledge flourished because it was shared, refined, and structured. Not because people wandered through life hoping experience would teach them.”

Jeeny: “But experience did teach them. Galileo looked at the sky long before any institution accepted what he saw. Van Gogh painted his truth before any academy called it genius. Einstein dreamed his theory before it was proven by mathematics. The world itself was their classroom.”

Jack: “And they all suffered for it. Misunderstood, rejected, alienated. You’re proving my point. Without structure, the world devours the dreamers.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Without courage, the dreamers devour themselves. Education isn’t supposed to protect us from pain — it’s supposed to open us to it. To the full force of reality. And sometimes, that means learning outside the lines.”

Host: Her voice had changed — softer, deeper — as though it carried the weight of memory. She looked beyond the platform, to where the horizon swallowed the last trace of light.

Jack: “So you’re saying schools are useless?”

Jeeny: “No. I’m saying they’re incomplete. They teach us to remember facts, but not to feel truth. To follow rules, but not to question why they exist.”

Jack: “But discipline matters. You can’t build knowledge out of feelings.”

Jeeny: “And you can’t build wisdom out of rules.”

Host: A gust of wind swept through, rattling an old signboard, scattering leaves across the platform like pages torn from forgotten lessons. The lamp above them flickered again, its glow stretching long across the empty floor.

Jack: “You sound like Rousseau,” he said finally. “Nature as the true teacher, civilization as the corrupter. It’s a romantic fantasy, Jeeny. We need civilization — systems, schools — to keep knowledge alive.”

Jeeny: “And yet civilization keeps producing people who forget how to live. We teach them how to calculate interest but not how to love. How to analyze poetry but not how to feel it. How to write essays on empathy but never how to practice it.”

Jack: “That’s not education’s fault. That’s humanity’s flaw.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they’re the same thing.”

Host: The words landed between them like a stone dropped into still water. Ripples of silence spread. For a long moment, neither spoke. The station clock ticked softly — patient, indifferent, eternal.

Jeeny: “When I was a child,” she said, almost whispering, “I used to watch my mother read. She couldn’t afford college. But she’d sit by the window and learn everything she could — from the way light changed on the floor, from the sound of rain, from books she borrowed and never owned. That was education, Jack. That was life teaching her, not a system.”

Jack: “And she deserved more. She deserved a place that gave her that knowledge without struggle.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But what she gained, she understood deeply. Because it was hers. Not something graded, not something taught for a test — but something lived.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes glistened with quiet memory, and for a moment, the lamp above seemed to pulse with her heartbeat.

Jack: “You make it sound sacred.”

Jeeny: “It is. The moment a person learns something because it means something to them — not because it’s required — that’s sacred.”

Jack: “And yet, the world doesn’t run on sacred things. It runs on certificates, credentials, systems.”

Jeeny: “And that’s why it keeps forgetting what it means to be human.”

Host: Jack sighed, the kind of sigh that comes from a place deeper than exhaustion — a sigh of recognition. He looked down the empty tracks, where the faint glow of a distant train grew like an approaching thought.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe schools are just frameworks — scaffolds for something more personal. But if education is a private matter, as Smith says, then what’s the teacher’s role?”

Jeeny: “To remind the student that the world itself is still waiting outside the door. That no classroom can contain truth. The teacher’s job is to open the window, not build a cage.”

Jack: “And what about failure?”

Jeeny: “That’s the first teacher. Always.”

Host: The train’s light grew brighter now, slicing through the mist, flooding the platform in brief, blinding clarity. Jack shielded his eyes, and for a second, both he and Jeeny were painted in gold — two silhouettes facing each other, between past and future, theory and truth.

Jack: “So maybe education begins the moment school ends.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it begins the moment we realize life itself is the curriculum.”

Host: The train roared past, scattering papers, leaves, and dust in its wake. When it was gone, only silence remained — thick, resonant, alive.

Jack looked at Jeeny and smiled, weary but real.

Jack: “You know, you make the world sound like one long lecture.”

Jeeny: “No,” she said, smiling back. “More like one endless question.”

Host: The lamp above them steadied, its light soft and sure now. The station was quiet — emptied of trains but full of something intangible: a sense of arrival.

In that stillness, the truth of Lillian Smith’s words breathed itself into being — that education is not confined to walls, nor measured in grades, nor ended by graduation. It is the endless conversation between the self and the universe, between wonder and understanding — a dialogue that never ends, only deepens.

As they rose and walked into the cooling night, the light followed them briefly, as if reluctant to let go — two learners, bound not by school, but by the shared pursuit of becoming more awake to the world.