School is something that you learn - reading and writing.

The visionary social reformer Bunker Roy, founder of the Barefoot College in India, once spoke a truth that pierces through the illusions of modern learning: “School is something that you learn — reading and writing. Education is what you learn from the family, from the environment, from the community.” In these words lies the eternal distinction between knowledge and wisdom, between the lessons written on paper and those written on the soul. Roy, who left behind the privileges of elite schooling to live among the poor, discovered that the truest education does not come from institutions, but from life itself — from the soil beneath one’s feet, the people one serves, and the experiences that shape one’s heart.

To the ancients, this truth was self-evident. In every civilization, from the sages of India to the philosophers of Greece, the elders taught that schooling may train the mind, but education forms the character. The schools of old taught letters and numbers, but the family and the village taught honor, humility, courage, and compassion. It was from parents that a child learned respect, from nature that one learned patience, from the community that one learned duty. The true scholar, they said, is not one who knows much, but one who lives wisely. Bunker Roy, standing in that same tradition, calls upon humanity to rediscover the sacred truth that the heart must be educated alongside the mind.

Roy’s insight was not born in comfort, but in revelation. After graduating from the prestigious Doon School and St. Stephen’s College, he could have pursued wealth or power. Instead, he traveled to the drought-stricken villages of Rajasthan, where he found an unexpected source of wisdom among the illiterate poor. The men and women of the desert, who had never entered a classroom, possessed a profound intelligence — one born of necessity, observation, and cooperation. They could read the sky for rain, diagnose illness from herbs, and build homes that withstood the fiercest heat. From them, Roy learned that education is not the memorization of words, but the mastery of life.

It was this revelation that led to the creation of the Barefoot College, a school for the unlettered, built by the unlettered. Here, grandmothers became solar engineers, farmers became teachers, and the illiterate became innovators. There were no degrees, no uniforms, no exams — only the sharing of knowledge and the growth of confidence. Roy’s school proved that education is not confined to the privileged few, but belongs to every human being who observes, adapts, and serves. The illiterate grandmother who learns to harness the power of the sun embodies a deeper wisdom than any scholar untouched by compassion.

In Roy’s teaching, we see a great reversal of values: that school gives us literacy, but education gives us humanity. The first teaches us to read the world, the second teaches us to understand it. Schooling may teach one to build a bridge, but education teaches why it should be built, and for whom. The truest education is not about degrees or prestige, but about service — learning from others, from the earth, from hardship, and from love. As the ancients taught, “The purpose of knowledge is not to elevate the self, but to uplift the world.”

Consider the story of Mahatma Gandhi, who, though trained in law, found his true education in the struggle of the poor and the suffering of the oppressed. His wisdom did not come from books, but from life — from listening to farmers, walking with workers, and enduring prison. In the same way, Bunker Roy followed the footsteps of Gandhi’s ideal of Nai Talim — the education of the head, the heart, and the hand. He proved that learning is complete only when it connects intellect with empathy, thought with action, and knowledge with purpose.

The lesson of Roy’s words is as timeless as it is urgent: Schooling is only the beginning; education is the journey of life itself. It is the duty of every person to keep learning — not only from books, but from people, from mistakes, from silence, and from service. Parents must teach their children not just arithmetic, but kindness. Communities must become classrooms where respect, cooperation, and responsibility are taught by example. For when learning leaves the classroom and enters the heart, humanity itself advances.

And so, let every listener remember this: school may prepare you for a career, but education prepares you for living. To be truly educated is to see wisdom in every encounter, to learn from every soul, and to give back to the world that taught you. In the words of Bunker Roy, let us seek not only to be literate, but to be enlightened — for it is not the diploma that builds a just world, but the awakened mind and the compassionate heart.