The Importance of Education
The global economic crisis of 2008 changed how people view the importance of education, job security, and what the returns of getting an education really are in today’s society.
Is getting an education still important? Whether it be continued education, going into a trade, or taking your post secondary school seriously, there are many options, and many pros and cons towards any of these career paths.
Breaks in between boring classes can even prove to have their ups and downs depending on the people you meet.
Teachers, books, and the recent emergence of the internet as an educational tool has given rise to the quality of education to many parts of the globe, with many more countries still catching up to current trends in education and schooling.
Practice for Life
School is practice for life, and practice makes perfect. Nobody’s perfect, so why practice? It’s probably because nobody’s perfect in the first place that makes striving for perfection such a fun race. You never know who may become perfect, and to get there, you must be able to build upon what other people have learned in the past, and what can be possible in the future.
Educational systems have devolved into the mere memorization of dates and facts, rather than promoting critical thinking and creativity. Education today has suddenly become solely about memorizing given material, passing a test, and getting a grade, passing or higher. This lack of real learning can discourage our children from thinking and asking questions, so rather than having their minds opened to fresh and new ideas, their minds are simply being filled with useless dates and facts.
The resounding majority of students today, sadly, are only attending school because they are simply forced to. They are complacent, simply scraping up decent grades to get by without actually learning anything to help critical and independent thinking. Compulsory knowledge can have widely varying lifespans in a person’s memory, as forced knowledge will only be on your mind as long as it has to be. You won’t learn things if they are forced, and the information will not linger on your memory for long.
In an education, the things you pick up in school, at home, or elsewhere may only truly end up useful in everyday life. That said, a high score in a videogame or thousands of pictures of animé characters save on a hard drive will not prove to serve much purpose. Material possessions and other worldly things will come and go throughout your time on this earth, but the knowledge you possess, as well as the skills and talents you may have developed will stay with you for your lifetime, so long as you don’t sustain a debilitating injury in some point. That said, you have probably learned to take better care of yourself during your education, so put it to good use.
Critical Thinking and Educational Tools
Ignorance of this kind can stunt the creative and critical thinking abilities of our children.
In an ideal society, every person will have a different, yet well informed opinion on a given topic. They will question the norm and demand explanations in order to find answers. This is the way it’s supposed to be, because students do not have to accept everything that they are taught in schools or elsewhere. The importance of education can enable students to learn certain things in order to remember them for tests while not requiring them to share the same opinions. Sometimes, the person in class who does have a second opinion can often be cast off by both teachers and students.
The importance of education also extends to students being able to understand what they are taught. A student only successfully learns something when the information processed can be interpreted in a unique fashion by the student. It is not enough to simply repeat the definition back to the person testing them.
Leaving the realm of formal education does not necessarily mean that we need to stop learning. In addition to books and adult learning facilities, common electronic devices such as your computer, smartphone, E-Readers, and even videogaming devices can offer learners the opportunity to teach themselves. The variety offered to learners today just goes to show how the importance of education is still yet to be fully utilized, but is still evolving quite rapidly. The tools may have changed, but the intent is still the same.
