1.19.2007

On Education

Here is an excerpt of an email I sent to a colleague:


Recently I’ve had a lot (and I mean a lot) of people saying things to me (not only students, but other staff as well), “when will I ever use this in real life?” and “when will this information be useful later in life?” Statements like these are usually made with a negative attitude. The thought is, “this information is not worth learning.” (An aside to this is, who are we to place value on certain types of knowledge and information? But that’s another discussion!) What it implies to me is that my life’s work is of no consequence. I’m appalled that both students and some staff have this attitude toward education.

While this attitude is extremely discouraging to me personally, we can know something about the attitudes of those who make such statements. To these folks being an educated person is not important. These folks assume that education and job training are the same thing; I maintain that they are not. It is my opinion that one of the most fundamental privileges of the human race is to expand our knowledge of the world around us, to become informed in the sciences (math, biology, geology, astronomy, etc.), to learn about our history, to become well read in great literature, and to become writers ourselves. In fact, I would not think it too preposterous to say that it’s not only our privilege, but it’s our duty. God created us all with minds that have the capacity to learn and expand; wouldn’t it be correct to assume that God desires that we learn?

Nevertheless, we as teachers are fighting a culture that does not value education. So I guess my takeaway is this: how do we change the culture? How do we create a culture where being an educated person is of great importance? How do we pass on to our students that being educated is valuable?

~

Here's something else to think about: is being educated important?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a great subject. Being a full time employee (active duty Air Force), and a college student, I think I can bring a different perspective to this blog. I thik "being educated" has a couple meanings. First, it means knowing a lot of stuff...having knowledge in various backgrounds such as math, science, and the arts. Also I think once one has learned these various subject, it gives that individual a great capacity to learn. This is possibly the job training that Bill had mentioned. I feel extremely lucky to have come from a family where a heavy importance on learning was placed. Also I feel lucky I was given a great oppurtunity to attend a private high school, where I learned a massive amount of information. With these two factors in place I became very educated. I took with me to the Air Force an extensive background of math, and verbal skills. These skills helped me score very well on my ASVAB test. The ASVAB is pretty much the SAT's for the miltary. These scores will let you know which branch you may enlist in, and also which jobs you may train for. Since my score was rather high, I was able to get a good job which, thank God, keeps me off the front lines. Some people may frown on that comment, but I know, and my family knows, I'm very lucky. Once in my job, I quickly learned and adapted to my work environment. I once again accredit this to my education. Did I even learn about missile's in high school? (This is my current job, Missile Technician) No I did not, nor did I learn about complex electronic circuits. But having a great capacity to learn, I was able to pick all these sujects up at an incredible (and noticible) pace. So whats my point? My point is that even though you won't be using everything you learn in school, you will use most of it. Also the skills you learn while learning, will benefit you as much, if not more, once out in the "real" world. So don't ask why you learn, just be thankful you have the capacity and the oppurtunity, because not everyone does.

Bill Sines said...

I couldn't agree more with that last sentence!

I never thought of it this way: that school is a place where you practice learning, and then from there we are better suited to be trained for a particular line of work. Good insight, Charlie!

Thanks for checking out the blog!

Anonymous said...

After Lenin had dealt with all of his opponents once the Communist Revolution was over, one of the next groups to get sent off to Siberia in the gulags was the "intellegentsia." University professors, outspoken university student groups, even engineers who appealed to physics and science to protest lowering industrial safety standards found themselves sent off to the tundra. Simply for being educated enough to think for themselves.

I don't know what the solution is, but if our culture in this country continues to devalue education solely for the sake of learning, we may find ourselves in a country that is ripe for negative social/political change along the lines of what happened in Russia.

Good post. When are you going to run for office and fix all of this stuff for us? ;)