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Only the educated are free.
--- Epictetus

Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
--- Edward Everett

The highest result of education is tolerance.
--- Helen Keller

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
--- Thomas Jefferson

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
--- Thomas Jefferson

No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.
--- Walter Lippmann

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.
--- Joseph Addison

I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.
--- Alexander of Macedon

Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible.
--- Robert M. Hutchins

It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.
--- Bertrand Russell

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
--- H.G. Wells

The best universities of the 21st century will bring together brainpower where it is, not where it can be institutionalized. The aim must be to create a republic of the intellect open to all, whose natural constituency will be those who keep themselves intellectually aware throughout their lives.
--- Sir Douglas Hague, Beyond Universities: A New Republic of the Intellect, 1991

Educational Principles and ResearchBack to Top

  • American Association of University Professors (AAUP) 1915 Declaration of Principles - including the following
    • Since there are no rights without corresponding duties, the considerations heretofore set down with respect to the freedom of the academic teacher entail certain correlative obligations. The claim to freedom of teaching is made in the interest of integrity and of the progress of scientific inquiry; it is, therefore, only those who carry on their work in the temper of the scientific inquirer who may justly assert this claim. The liberty of the scholar within the university to set forth his conclusions, be they what they may, is conditioned by their being conclusions gained by a scholar's method and held in a scholar's spirit; that is to say, they must be the fruits of competent and patient and sincere inuiry, and they should be set forth with dignity, courtesy, and temperateness of language. The university teacher, in giving instructions upon controversial matters, while he is under no obligation to hide his own opinion under a mountain of equivocal verbiage, should, if he is fit in dealing with such subjects, set forth justly, without suppression or innuendo, the divergent opinions of other investigators; he should cause his students to become familiar with the best published expressions of the great historic types of doctrine upon the questions at issue; and he should, above all, remember that his business is not to provide his students with ready-made conclusions, but to train them to think for themselves, and to provide them access to those materials which they need if they are to think intelligently.

  • Tacit Knowledge and Practical Intelligence: Understanding the Lessons of Experience (local copy), by Hedlund et al, for U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, Oct 2002
    • This report addresses the role of practical intelligence and tacit knowledge in understanding how individuals learn from experience and develop expertise. We present background on the notion of practical intelligence as an alternative to conventional conceptualizations of intelligence, and the exploration of the acquisition and utilization of tacit knowledge as elements of practical intelligence.

Future Educational Technology, New Media, Social Media, & EducationBack to Top

Future Military Education - What's Needed? What's Coming?Back to Top

  • See also New Media, Web 2.0, and Education & Training at the Cyberspace and Information Operations Study Center (CIOSC)

  • See also DoD and service leadership competency models at Strategic Leadership Studies for competencies to be addressed by military education

  • See also the strategic corporal and the three-block war regarding the need for strategic thinking at all levels in today's and tomorrow's conflicts
    • The lines separating the levels of war, and distinguishing combatant from "non-combatant," will blur, and adversaries, confounded by our "conventional" superiority, will resort to asymmetrical means to redress the imbalance. Further complicating the situation will be the ubiquitous media whose presence will mean that all future conflicts will be acted out before an international audience. [Krulak]

  • Charting the Course for Effective Professional Military Education - 10 Sep 09 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee - local copies of transcripts below
    • Lieutenant General Dave Barno, USA (ret.) - Director, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies
      • Given the notable shortcomings many ascribe to U.S. strategic thinking over the last decade -- some deeply involving senior military leaders -- we must seriously question whether our program of PME today is on the right track. In my estimation, we are drifting off course, and if uncorrected, our marked advantage in the intellectual capital of warfare, in the face of an increasingly uncertain future, is at risk.
      • Thus, for almost all senior officers -- all our generals and admirals -- the final fifteen to twenty years of their career is almost entirely largely lacking in extended developmental experiences. This fact becomes more troubling when correlated with the reality that decision-making and complexity at the senior levels -- especially regarding strategic and grand strategic issues -- is immensely more complex and uncertain than the relatively simpler worlds of tactics and operations. So-called "wicked problems" unresponsive to set-piece solutions abound.
    • Dr. Williamson Murray - Senior Fellow, Institute for Defense Analyses
      • The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that the United States can no longer afford an approach resting on the comfortable assumption that commanders can acquire skills on the fly to deal with the new and different complexities that each conflict will bring in its wake. As General James Mattis suggested in an email to a professor at National War College, “We have been fighting on this planet for 5,000 years and we should take advantage of that experience. ‘Winging it’ and filling body bags as we sort out what works reminds us of the moral dictates and the cost of competence in our profession.” The depressing story of our flawed efforts to handle a burgeoning insurgency during the post-invasion period in Iraq suggests that too many senior officers had never studied the lessons of Vietnam, much less the experiences of the British in their efforts to defeat the 1920 insurgency in Iraq.
    • Dr. John Allen Williams - President, Inter-University Seminar on the Armed Forces and Society
      • Given the complexity of the future threat environment and the importance of the issues involved – military threats and the proper relation between the military and the society it serves –the Skelton Report’s call for the development of strategists and the encouragement of strategic thinking is increasingly relevant. One should note that these are not quite the same thing. Only a small number of officers will develop into strategists of the first rank, but these are so important that the PME system must do as much as it can to encourage them to develop their talents to the maximum degree possible.

  • On Learning: The Future of Air Force Education and Training (local copy), AETC White Paper, 30 Jan 08
    • from the news release:
        "The 29-page white paper details how the Air Force can transform its training and education system of today into a continuous learning culture to meet the Air Force missions of tomorrow. The transformation will take place between 2008 and 2030.

        AETC produced the forward-looking study with two purposes in mind, said Gen. William R. Looney III, AETC commander. The first was to generate a body of thought on the future of education and training. The second was to focus on impending issues for the Air Force.

        The white paper introduces concepts that support the Air Force, its leaders and Airmen in their development and lifelong learning needs. At the heart of the vision is a learning organization called "Air Force 2.0." Air Force 2.0 is defined by three areas: knowledge management that discusses how the Air Force operates; continuous learning that covers how the Air Force develops people; and precision learning that explains how the Air Force delivers learning.

        At the cornerstone of the new learning organization is a virtual delivery platform known as "MyBase." MyBase will provide an environment for lifelong learning, from educating the general public, to entry into the service, and throughout Airmen's careers and post-career years."

  • Developing Strategic Leaders for the 21st Century (local copy), by McCausland, SSI, Feb 2008

  • Irregular Warfare: Impact on Future Professional Military Education (local copy), by Paschal, U.S. Army War College, March 2006

  • Transition to the Information Age Demands Improvements to Professional Military Education System (local copy), Congressman Ike Skelton press release, 28 Sep 05
    • Imagine what might happen if a Rembrandt received a box of 16 crayons, and an average Joe was given a full palette of oil paints, easel, and canvas. Which one is more likely to produce a work of art? The analogy may not exactly fit, but the point is clear – the tools matter less than the talent, training, and dedication that create the art. You can’t have a masterpiece without a master. I think we forget that sometimes in the realm of warfare.

  • PME 2020, Future of Military Education (local copy), from SpaceCast 2020, showing where military education could go if full advantage were taken of technologies available now or soon in the future -- "virtual residency"

  • Agile Leaders, Agile Institutions: Educating Adaptive and Innovative Leaders for Today and Tomorrow, by Gehler, SSI, Aug 2005

  • Thinking About ... Learning in DoD: Changing the Culture (local copy, PDF version, 300 Kb), briefing by Wertheim, posted at DODCCRP - emphasis on need for more cultural education and understanding and skills
    (original PPT file, 2 Mb)

  • Mapping the Route of Leadership Education: Caution Ahead (local copy), by Reed et al, in Parameters, Autumn 2004

  • Global War on Terrorism: Understanding the Long-Term Strategy - Why Education Is Key - (local copy), by Caslen, MECC briefing, 3 Feb 05 (PDF)

  • Training for Future Conflicts (local copy), Defense Science Board report, June 2003
    • The task force's principal finding is that transformation of the military will substantially increase the cognitive demands on even the most junior levels of the military. In short, everybody must think. Our current training and education processes will not adequately prepare our people to cope with these increasing and constantly changing cognitive requirements. Something new is needed to insure that all our forces are competent to do the many tasks that our transformed military will require of them. In general, however, we find that the research and development funding required to create this new kind of training is not only scarce, it is being cut. Finally, we find that the personnel system, like the acquisition system, is similarly free to disrupt training and military proficiency without being called to account for these results.
    • Definition -- Training is relevant practice with feedback
    • Many myths about training are sustained by commonsense, but not by research. For example, the notion that people learn better when the training process matches their “learning style” is quite appealing but not borne out by quantitative research.
    • Residential instruction has a long historical precedent. For some kinds of training it is still appropriate, but lectures are a poor way to instil complex skills. Moreover, moving people in and out of schoolhouses is costly and incredibly disruptive to unit cohesion. Personal computers, networking, and new training technology now make it possible to move knowledge to the student instead of moving the student to the classroom.
    • ... an electronically delivered course could e-mail former students when the course matter changed, in opposition to how a conventional course ends when the students leave the classroom.
    • Sampling of recommendations:
      • To replace one-time schoolhouse training with continuous training at the user’s location: home station or deployed
      • Training devices that also migrate into being operational decision aids
      • Distributed virtual training environments
      • Universal, persistent on-demand training wars
      • To make acquisition and personnel systems accountable for the training burdens they create
      • To create a true Joint National Training Capability through networking

  • Army FA59 (strategist) Education Demographics
    • Variety of degrees - military studies, business, international relations, physical sciences, engineering, public admin, criminology, management, sociology, philosophy, English, political science, education, journalism, liberal arts, history, safety, economics, religion, psychology, leadership development, French, biology, anthropology, zoology, public affairs, communications, public policy, organizational behavior, and more
    • "The degrees and schools illustrate that 59s are an incredible resource for the Army. Of particular note is the varied educational backgrounds which suggest a degree of "intellectual pluralism" which the Army and the Functional Area demand. While many in the Army have similar backgrounds and education --which may result in group think-- you'd be hard-pressed to assert that the varied backgrounds of the officers that populate our ranks (e.g., Harvard, Yale, Oxford, SAMS, Cornell, MIT, Ohio, Naval Post Graduate School, Webster, Troy State, Maryland, NDU, Michigan, etc.) will spout "cookie cutter" answers to the complex strategic problems facing the Army and America."

  • Cognitive Transformation and Culture-Centric Warfare (local copy), by Scales, Congressional testimony, 15 Jul 04 - samples below
    • More than a year after the Iraq war began soldiers are rotating home with a sense of unmet expectations. Consensus seems to building among them that this conflict was fought brilliantly at the technological level but inadequately at the human level. The human element seems to underlie virtually all of the functional shortcomings chronicled in official reports and media stories: information operations, civil affairs, cultural awareness, soldier conduct…and most glaringly, intelligence, from national to tactical.
    • This new era of war requires soldiers equipped with exceptional cultural awareness and an intuitive sense for the nature and character of war. Where should this culture centric learning take place? Unfortunately higher-level military colleges and schools fail to meet the learning needs of the services. Very few military leaders are fortunate to be selected to attend institutions that teach war. Those selected are chosen based solely on job performance rather than for the excellence of their intellect. Personnel policies affecting the purpose of senior military education have transformed these institutions partly into meeting places intended to achieve interservice, inter agency and international comity. The price for socialization has been a diminishment in the depth and rigor of war studies within these institutions. Thus the central elements necessary to gain a deeper understanding of the nature and character or war, military history (primarily) along with war games and military psychology and leadership, often are slighted in an effort to teach every subject to every conceivable constituency to the lowest common denominator.
    • First, every military leader, particularly those whose job is to practice war, must be given every opportunity to study war. Learning must be a life-long process. Every soldier regardless of grade or specialty should be given unfettered and continuous access to the best and most inclusive programs of war studies. Every soldier who takes advantage of the opportunity to learn must receive recognition and professional reward for the quality of that learning. Contemporary distance learning technology allows the learning process to be amplified and proliferated such that every soldier can learn to his or her capacity and motivation.
    • Second, those who demonstrate exceptional brilliance and whose capacity for higher level strategic leadership is exemplary should be afforded a unique opportunity to expand their knowledge to a degree unprecedented in the past. In this scheme the traditional staff and war colleges would focus attention exclusively on a constituency selected principally on intellectual merit. Every officer would be given the privilege of competing for a seat in these selective courses in residence.

  • Educating the Post-Modern U.S. Army Strategic Planner: Improving the Organizational Construct (local copy), by Wilson, a 2003 SAMS paper

  • DoD Office of Force Transformation (now defunct) - with DoD roadmaps to future
    • Education for Transformation (Local Copy), Mar 2004 briefing by Pattillo, Office of Force Transformation - two interesting slides are after the Questions? slide at the end - indicating need for lifelong learning which is fun and tailored to individual needs

  • Digital Libraries: Universal Access to Human Knowledge (local copy), Feb 2001 report by President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC)

  • University After Next, by Meigs and Fitzgerald, in Military Review (local copy)

  • Developing the Warrior-Scholar (local copy), by Efflandt and Reed, in Military Review, Jul-Aug 2001
    • Although the upper military echelons may assess a society from a nation-state perspective, a company commander performing humanitarian assistance for a village must see that village as a society and act accordingly. Junior officers who apply sociological imagination to the following three question sets can assess systematically various 21st-century situations and societies they will confront:
      • What is the structure of the society as a whole?
      • Where does this society stand in human history?
      • What varieties of men and women prevail in this society and period?
      • [above questions are expanded in the article]

  • Professional Military Education for the 21st Century Warrior, 1998 MECC conference

  • Prospects for Military Education (local copy), Spring 1998 Joint Force Quarterly

  • Military Education Home Page, J-7 of JCS
    • JPME 2020

  • DL .. DL .. DL .. DL .. DL .. DL
Military Education ReferencesBack to Top U.S. GovernmentBack to Top DoD - JCS Education LinksBack to Top Distributed Learning Offices and InitiativesBack to Top Education & Training CommandsBack to Top DoD Universities and Multi-School CentersBack to Top Senior PME/PCE, OfficersBack to Top Intermediate PME/PCE, OfficersBack to Top Professional/Continuing EducationBack to Top Junior or Introductory PME, OfficersBack to Top Enlisted Colleges/Academies/ResourcesBack to Top Other Schools/CentersBack to Top College Credit ProgramsBack to Top Base/Post Education CentersBack to Top Accession ProgramsBack to Top International Military EducationBack to Top

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