Education

Some people say that education is the corner stone of society. It’s difficult to argue this because everything is essentially taught to us through some form of education. Whether it’s learning to walk, talk, or read, education is no doubt important for the interaction and survival mankind, but where should we draw the line? Is spending 18 year of our lives in school really worth it? I believe that education has grown into something that is no longer justifiable. We live in a society that glorifies the educated and many people have another 4 years of schooling to complete after high school just to get a decent job. People are getting so wrapped up in their schooling that they are looking only to the future and never to the present. They were never taught to "seize the day" which I believe is even more important than most of the information they teach you in high school. In Mark Twain's, Two Ways of Seeing the River, he speaks about how the river is a wonderful book, which was dead language to the uneducated. I believe that the education he speaks of is different from what most people associate the word with. He is talking about the ability just to sit back and take in the world for what it is; to be able to live in the moment and do what makes you truly happy. As schooling becomes more and more competitive and people are either forced to compete or just give up, the language he speaks of dies. There is so much more in the world than being able to do calculus, or interpret poetry; there is happiness that eludes far too many. In, The Dead Poet Society, Neil Perry gets a taste of this happiness. After being inspired to "seize the day" by his teacher, Mr. John Keating, Neil tries out for a local play. This was a big deal because he had been attending a prestigious private school that chose not to recognize the independence of its students. For the first time in his life, Neil was just overwhelmed with happiness; you could tell something had changed just by looking at his face. In the conclusion of the movie Neil’s father found out that he had been acting without permission and chose to enroll him in military school so he could never act again. The only option that Neil saw to get out of this predicament was suicide. He would rather kill himself then loose the feeling that he got from acting. I believe that Neil finally realized that there is more to life than school. Don't get me wrong, there is definitely a positive side of school, but who says it has to be so time consuming? In, How I Discovered Words: A Homemade Education, Malcolm X talks about how he learned to read. While he was in prison, he found himself with more time than he knew what to do with, so he taught himself to read. Through sheer will power, Malcolm X had copied an entire dictionary and perfected his new reading skills. In this case, reading is what made Malcolm happy, and through his newer, more educated self, he accomplished amazing things for the civil rights movement. I guess my point is that you do not have to spend a quarter of your life in school to do great things; if you want something bad enough, you'll figure out how to get it. We have far too little time on this planet to spend the first 20 years of our lives in school. The modern education standard is making it harder and harder to live for the moment. There is no reason we should get rid of schooling, after all that is what makes us a civilized people, but there needs to be something done. An electrician has no need for perfect grammar, and a grammar teacher has no need for calculus. Schooling becomes more and more essential for a good paying job and I do not foresee that changing in near future.


Works Cited
Dead Poet Society. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Robin Williams, Robert Leanard. DVD. ToucheStone Pictures, 1989.
Twain, Mark. Two Ways of Seeing the River.
X, Malcolm, and Alex Haley. How I Discovered Words.