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Journal topic #1: Education
8 years ago
Please be sure to read everything, every detail is important:
This is the first of what I hope to be many journals that I will write giving my thoughts toward certain topics, and this one is based on by a question posed by 
monroethelizard and he asks:
"Is education valuable in itself, or does the value lie in what someone does with their education?"
So first, let's take a look at education in general. I don't know about most of the people who are reading my journals, but I live in the US of A. Virginia to be exact, and though I have not learned much about how other countries work their education, this is how America handles it:
Each child is required to go to school up until a certain point (Not quite sure what that point is, but let's say they do not have to go to college) and they have two choices depending on the parents' choice, private school or public school, and this lasts from pre-education/ Kindergarten all the way through to the 12th grade (end of high school). Public school tends to have some lower quality attributes, but mostly not that bad and is paid for by the government funds they get through taxes. Private schools are not funded by the government and instead get their money through tuition payments made by the parents directly, which means that they need better quality than public schools to make sure that the students keep going to them. (Topic that I may mention later, one of the problems in this country are the complaints that parents give when they still have to pay some tax funds that go to a public school when their child attends private school, but that may be for a later topic.)
I have had the pleasure of going to both private and public schools. First going from pre school to 3rd in public school, then switching to private school all through 8th grade (end of middle school) and then moving back into public school to attend an academy that school offered. The differences are apparent, and while yes, private schools are more strict and well balanced, you still have your bullies and teachers you don't get along with, and there tends to be more work, but it is for a greater product (also, not just bullies, but because of what kind of school it is, there are now rich snobby kids too [uugggggghh])
But anyway, the education that you can learn at either of these schools can become either very valuable to you or not valuable at all in the long run. Of all classes, 4 are absolutely required: Math, Science, English/ literature, and Social studies/ history. These four core fields tend to be main keys to split from to grow in more knowledge if a student wishes to learn more on it in high school. An example could be that with your knowledge in math (at this point if you are putting effort toward it, you are taking core classes of Algebra II, Pre-Calc, AP Calculus BC) then you can also take classes like Statistics as a side coarse. With Science, you can take Chemistry as a core course but then also take Organic and Biochem.
There are a lot of things that your education can give you, and the value of knowledge itself is a very powerful thing, but the thing is that once you set yourself on doing a certain profession, certain subjects and areas of knowledge become obsolete, unneeded. If someone were to become an engineer, he or she won't need to know who was killed to start the First World War (archduke Franz Ferdinand). The only time that this knowledge could be considered helpful is in an intellectual discussion or in Jeopardy (the TV show). Granted, intellectual discussions are very nice, so long as it is done properly, but in the long scheme of things, we have all eventually forgotten a lot of what we learned in the past.
That is not to say that what we have forgotten was not important though. I like to think of knowledge as a "potential". The more you know, the more potential you have to be able to do a wide variety of things. I plan to become a nuclear engineer for the military, but if that does not work out, I can be a civil or aerospace engineer. If not engineering, I could definately try to become a physics teacher because these are things I have learned to do and qualify myself in through my education.
In all, everything you learn in school usually always has a real world application other than passing the next test, quiz, or exam. Sure classes in your early years may be set on a wide variety of topics, but once you enter your later stages in education, you are given the opportunity to do classes that focus on certain fields, and this can extend into college where literally almost all of your classes are chosen by you to fit what you need to get your professional degree. It is what you want to work toward that is important, and so to answer the question above in my own opinion:
It is more important in the application and practical use of the knowledge learned in school. While the knowledge itself is very helpful and powerful, it will need to be used for a purpose in the first place in order for its power to be realized. Education can be poor or great however, depending on where you go to school, so this opinion can be altered based on experiences. Another thing to note is that I can learn how to work a programming language, and then eventually become a hacker and criminal in the process. I believe that personally, the education did not cause this, the person did. Education is a tool, and it is up to the person on how to use it, and there I will bring up the word "potential" again. Just like my opinions on guns, they are tools. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Education and knowledge is a tool. How will you use it? That is what is most important to me.
How did you guys like it? What are your thoughts? Please leave your opinion on the topic in the comments below (goodness I sound like I am on YouTube =w= ) and if you would like to suggest your own idea for a topic you would like me to give my opinion on or anything else, please also leave a comment on it and I will respond. This is really really fun to me and I greatly enjoy sharing my thoughts on the internet (because nobody will attack me for that right.. r-right?)
Thank you all for reading~
(Edit: also, sorry for any typos. This was not done on a computer per say, but I think I did well on it~ most likely will see lower case "i"s or some minor misspellings or autocorrect errors, but the base message should be easy to see)
monroethelizard and he asks:"Is education valuable in itself, or does the value lie in what someone does with their education?"
So first, let's take a look at education in general. I don't know about most of the people who are reading my journals, but I live in the US of A. Virginia to be exact, and though I have not learned much about how other countries work their education, this is how America handles it:
Each child is required to go to school up until a certain point (Not quite sure what that point is, but let's say they do not have to go to college) and they have two choices depending on the parents' choice, private school or public school, and this lasts from pre-education/ Kindergarten all the way through to the 12th grade (end of high school). Public school tends to have some lower quality attributes, but mostly not that bad and is paid for by the government funds they get through taxes. Private schools are not funded by the government and instead get their money through tuition payments made by the parents directly, which means that they need better quality than public schools to make sure that the students keep going to them. (Topic that I may mention later, one of the problems in this country are the complaints that parents give when they still have to pay some tax funds that go to a public school when their child attends private school, but that may be for a later topic.)
I have had the pleasure of going to both private and public schools. First going from pre school to 3rd in public school, then switching to private school all through 8th grade (end of middle school) and then moving back into public school to attend an academy that school offered. The differences are apparent, and while yes, private schools are more strict and well balanced, you still have your bullies and teachers you don't get along with, and there tends to be more work, but it is for a greater product (also, not just bullies, but because of what kind of school it is, there are now rich snobby kids too [uugggggghh])
But anyway, the education that you can learn at either of these schools can become either very valuable to you or not valuable at all in the long run. Of all classes, 4 are absolutely required: Math, Science, English/ literature, and Social studies/ history. These four core fields tend to be main keys to split from to grow in more knowledge if a student wishes to learn more on it in high school. An example could be that with your knowledge in math (at this point if you are putting effort toward it, you are taking core classes of Algebra II, Pre-Calc, AP Calculus BC) then you can also take classes like Statistics as a side coarse. With Science, you can take Chemistry as a core course but then also take Organic and Biochem.
There are a lot of things that your education can give you, and the value of knowledge itself is a very powerful thing, but the thing is that once you set yourself on doing a certain profession, certain subjects and areas of knowledge become obsolete, unneeded. If someone were to become an engineer, he or she won't need to know who was killed to start the First World War (archduke Franz Ferdinand). The only time that this knowledge could be considered helpful is in an intellectual discussion or in Jeopardy (the TV show). Granted, intellectual discussions are very nice, so long as it is done properly, but in the long scheme of things, we have all eventually forgotten a lot of what we learned in the past.
That is not to say that what we have forgotten was not important though. I like to think of knowledge as a "potential". The more you know, the more potential you have to be able to do a wide variety of things. I plan to become a nuclear engineer for the military, but if that does not work out, I can be a civil or aerospace engineer. If not engineering, I could definately try to become a physics teacher because these are things I have learned to do and qualify myself in through my education.
In all, everything you learn in school usually always has a real world application other than passing the next test, quiz, or exam. Sure classes in your early years may be set on a wide variety of topics, but once you enter your later stages in education, you are given the opportunity to do classes that focus on certain fields, and this can extend into college where literally almost all of your classes are chosen by you to fit what you need to get your professional degree. It is what you want to work toward that is important, and so to answer the question above in my own opinion:
It is more important in the application and practical use of the knowledge learned in school. While the knowledge itself is very helpful and powerful, it will need to be used for a purpose in the first place in order for its power to be realized. Education can be poor or great however, depending on where you go to school, so this opinion can be altered based on experiences. Another thing to note is that I can learn how to work a programming language, and then eventually become a hacker and criminal in the process. I believe that personally, the education did not cause this, the person did. Education is a tool, and it is up to the person on how to use it, and there I will bring up the word "potential" again. Just like my opinions on guns, they are tools. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Education and knowledge is a tool. How will you use it? That is what is most important to me.
How did you guys like it? What are your thoughts? Please leave your opinion on the topic in the comments below (goodness I sound like I am on YouTube =w= ) and if you would like to suggest your own idea for a topic you would like me to give my opinion on or anything else, please also leave a comment on it and I will respond. This is really really fun to me and I greatly enjoy sharing my thoughts on the internet (because nobody will attack me for that right.. r-right?)
Thank you all for reading~
(Edit: also, sorry for any typos. This was not done on a computer per say, but I think I did well on it~ most likely will see lower case "i"s or some minor misspellings or autocorrect errors, but the base message should be easy to see)
