Nick Pappas has published a series of over 15 thought-provoking books with Algora Publishing. He teaches high school English Language Arts in Western New York. Prior to that he worked as a director and consultant in information technology. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School. Nick has written numerous short stories and poems in addition to his philosophical dialogues.

People do expect knowledge, understanding, and maturity of those who receive education. Unfortunately, things don;¢t always pan out. Sometimes Ã?¢'¬Ã??education;¢ produces a kind of learned ignorance; sometimes cliquishness; and sometimes...

People do expect knowledge, understanding, and maturity of those who receive education. Unfortunately, things don;¢t always pan out. Sometimes Ã?¢'¬Ã??education;¢ produces a kind of learned ignorance; sometimes cliquishness; and sometimes blindness. So how do you get the good and avoid the bad? Director, a philosopher figure in this book, gets at the question with his two interlocutors, Musician and Professor. Music is often a great passion of young people. According to some of the more influential ancient Greeks, music educates the soul. And I think this is something people today can appreciate. Music speaks to the soul; education would like to speak to the soul. Music, in the broadest sense, can be, and often is, its tool. What is this broadest sense? And how is music a tool? The youths in question here do not like to think of music as a tool for education, or any other thing for that matter. Music liberates. Music frees. Music is beyond all other concerns. But is it? That's why the second character in this book is a musician and not someone who is concerned with engineering, for instance. Engineering is important, a necessity in our world;�but who would argue it gives wing to the soul? Education can point to a door, but we must walk up, turn the knob, and walk in on our own. There's no guarantee for what's behind that door. So true education takes a fair amount of courage. I;¢m not of the opinion that courage can be taught. We can emulate the courageous, but it's all on us.