Forgive me for my absence; I know you were all eagerly awaiting my next post. I have been so wrapped up in other things, namely school.
Yes, I am a second timer, back in college for another try at obtaining that oh-so-important degree. This time around, I am married with a kid and a company to run so the process is slow and very demanding. I have only been attempting one class at a time as my classes require time-consuming, labor intensive projects. This semester, however, I decided to go crazy and take two classes! What madness!Sarcasm aside, I’m not complaining. I love to learn. One of my classes this semester is English, which combines two of my favorite hobbies, reading and writing. And my teacher certainly loves to challenge us to think critically. We recently pondered two questions which interested me far more than I first anticipated. One was whether or not people need to attend college. The other was whether or not there is knowledge a person must have. I wrote essays on these subjects which turned out to be a combined 22 pages. Being that a blog is meant to be a casual and interesting conversation, I will not bore you by posting my papers. While I want to get you thinking about these subjects, my true purpose today is to get you thinking about knowledge and what it means to you, to all of us.
I know that our minds may be clouded by an imperfect education process. (No one/organization is perfect and I don't mean to blame it all on schools/teachers/administrators. We are all part of the education process) We think of school as something we have to do. We think we have to attend college because that is how we’ll be able to obtain a good job. Some might even think school is boring; it’s all about test scores, following rules, and learning things we’ll never use in the real world. But therein lies the problem. We have forgotten what the true value of an education is. We have forgotten the excitement of learning. We have forgotten the wonder of the world when viewed through curious eyes. We no longer appreciate the privilege that is an education.
Perhaps I am a nerd and that is why I think this way. But I am hungry for knowledge. I want to know the hows and whys and what ifs. And the more I learn, the more I feel connected to the world, to other people, to life. The more I learn, the more I see the connection between things. The more I learn, the smaller the world becomes. But at the same time, the larger it becomes. The more I learn, the more my mind opens up and I can see all the beauty, all the wonder, all the possibilities before me.
See, in the end, an education isn’t something forced upon us. It is a gift. An education is not solely about getting a job and making money. It is not a means to an end but an end in itself. The true purpose of an education is to make you think critically about the world, about life, about all that you are confronted with. An education is meant to make you a better person, not a better employee. Knowledge is meant to set you free, to give you the light you need to discover, to guide you through the darkness.
I could go on and on, but as I said before, I will not rewrite my essays. I just want you all to think about what it means to be educated and what knowledge is valuable, not what is considered practical, but what makes us better people. I see schools focusing on test scores, memorization and regurgitation. I see the slow disappearance of exploratory science, art, music, and physical activity. I see a society that forces the issue of college, and thinks that learning can only take place between four walls, and that an educated person is someone whose intelligence can be measured by standarized tests. I see a lot of problems. But the biggest problem of all is that we are thinking of knowledge and education in all the wrong ways.
Think about it…and tell me what you think…the more thinking going on in this world, the better!
