Several readers responded to my column of the businessman who didn’t have time to learn how to use his computer – the one his business absolutely depended on. But one of the most thought-provoking ones was from RW Walden, who distinguishes between education and training.

This is an important subtlety that we have not addressed directly, although we have certainly skirted the issue many times. My dictionary indicates that (my translation) training is a subset of education. Training is an exercise designed to gain proficiency at a task. Education is “to train by formal instruction and supervised practice especially in a skill, trade, or profession.”

For instance, we say that athletes train for the Olympics. They train to excel in specific events, but we go to school or class to get educated in Spanish.

I believe that most people who use computers in some way have been trained. For instance, the person who asks if you want fries with that before entering your data into the fast food computer probably has no idea at all of what happens when finger meets membrane. Similarly, many workers who use regular PCs in their jobs have been trained to do specific things.

The seniors we are concerned about in this column often come to the class or an instructor with some training. They want to get an education. This is an important distinction to make if the instructor has been in the mode of professionally training people to do specific things. Even in the most informal private lessons, an instructor should have an agenda in mind tailored to fit the needs of that specific client to learn general functions. Each session should have a directed theme with plenty of time left available for questions and answers and tangential explorations. In contrast to this, a trainer in an industrial situation has a much more rigid agenda and it covers only those tasks that need to be accomplished on the job.

The rub comes when a client starts by saying, “I only want to learn how to send e-mail. I don’t need to know the rest of that stuff.” Remember, the client is right. The immediate need is to learn e-mail. Perhaps the client has no idea of what else can be done and doesn’t want to devote the time and effort to learn it anyway. Insisting that e-mail is a part of a larger course of learning does a disservice. My advice in that situation is to formulate an agenda that directly addresses the client’s needs and at the same time gives peeks into other functions so that the opportunity to learn beyond simply training is presented in a way that can influence the client’s later decisions.

In a classroom, the situation is certainly less flexible, but by announcing ahead of time the subject of each class and not be overly ambitious about how much material is covered, a similar program can be implemented.

Instructors for seniors by nature tend to be enthusiasts and prefer to set up programs of general education. They might not distinguish between education and training the way I have here, but if they did, they would probably give more prestige to education. There is something inherently distasteful about giving only a part of the pie to a student. Enthusiasts want to share the whole thing. And in the process they risk turning off prospective students. However, I suggest that a trainee who is a prospective student can only make that transition by being enticed. The tutor can start the relationship functioning as a trainer and along the way give the trainee glimpses of the doors that can be opened with only a little more effort and the rewards that come from knowing more. If the students want to go there, they will tell you.