Topic: What is a Good Education?
The Good Education, The Better Education, and The Best Education
My mom used to say ?Your never going to get anywhere in life unless you get your high school and college degrees?. In a way, she?s right. It?s a proven fact that college graduates make more money in a lifetime that just high school graduates or non-graduates. ?A college degree has become increasingly important to earning a good salary? (Scott). On the other hand, no one in my family went to college except my mom. Some of them didn?t even go to high school and they still make a good living. With our changing society who?s to say what a good education is? Everyone learns differently, is interested in different things, and excels in different areas. So how can someone try to tear apart the general education system that has been working for years? Without the curriculum, there would be a handful of really educated people and a mass of people who were left behind.
My education so far has lived up to my ideal. The education system does what it sets out to do and more. It?s not just classes, it?s athletics, art, clubs, and friends. The system has developed into so much more than just an education system for the core curriculum; it?s an environment. People who are home-schooled are set apart from the public school children not because they are taught different things, but because they are in different environments. I appreciate all that the school system did for me and I wouldn?t change anything about it. Even the bad experiences were learning experiences. The imperfections of the system are not necessarily bad. They are opportunities for students to develop relationships with teachers and other students to try and better the system which in itself makes the system better.
The fundamental purpose of education is to give people a way to make a living. If it weren?t for education, our society wouldn?t be the way it is. People wouldn?t be able to be anything they wanted or combine what they love to do with what will provide for their families. Education in this country is provided by the core curriculum taught through the school system. Yet, people still can?t seem to see that. Instead of looking at what education does for our society, people are looking at what it doesn?t do. The system isn?t perfect, but what is?
One of those people is named Freire. He came up with the theory called ?the banking concept?. In which he states that the system is about the teachers depositing information into the students. The students then ?receive, memorize, and repeat? (Freire 70) the information. ?This is the banking concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits? (Freire 70). He explains that the students may become collectors of the information, but he believes that ?it is men themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge? (Freire 70) in the system. He states that the ?deposits themselves contain contradictions about reality [and] sooner or later, [those] contradictions may lead formally passive students to turn against their domestication and the attempt to domesticate reality? (Freire 71-72). Freire is right, but I disagree with him.
In order to educate young kids who could care less about school, the teachers have to set up a way to teach them. Once the students get to a college level, this system isn?t as important. The students in college are there because they want to further their education in a special area; people are not required to go to college. Therefore, the students are more motivated to learn and the teachers don?t have to work so hard to present the information. Before the students get to college, they have to be spoon fed as my grandma calls it. The purpose of the system is that by the time the student graduates from high school they will have a general knowledge about our society and won?t be left behind. If it takes ?depositing? information into students, then so be it. The students may not ?perceive? what it all means, but if the time comes and they need to use that information they will remember learning it. The skill to read and write was ?deposited? in students, but it also stayed with them. The system teaches you how to listen, how to learn, how to adapt yourself to certain situations to succeed. The system teaches you people skills. Students use these skills everyday not just with things associated with school. The system teaches you people skills. Friere?s idea on seeking liberation just contradicts his whole theory. If the banking system is supposed to make the students adapt to the content, then how are the students who are being educated by the banking system the same ones that are contradicting it? That is proof that the system is working. Freire is a smart man and he got his basic education from the system. Then, he turns around to contradict the very thing that gave him the knowledge to contradict. Frieres? ?banking theory? has no real solution. He is just complaining, stating his opinion. If he offered a real solution to the problem I would be able to look at his work with more respect. To me he is just another critic because there is no way to make the system perfect and we need the system.
The things that are wrong with the system aren?t with the system; they are with the people who are within the system. There is always that one teacher who all the students know their class as the blow off class, the one teacher who bombards you with work everyday, and the teachers who favor athletes or a certain sex. The only thing I would change to try and make the system fit my idea of a fundamental education system is the discrimination. I understand that everyone is going to discriminate. We are all humans and that is what we do; however, in order to make this system work like it needs to there needs to be certain rules that apply to all teachers in all situations no matter what. A teacher who gives a certain group all good grades to help them pass shouldn?t be allowed. There is a difference in being extra nice to a certain group of students and giving that group of students grades they didn?t deserve. The teachers are given too much freedom in that sense. This issue should be taken more seriously. Besides that I would leave the system we currently have just like it is, imperfections and all.
Everyone is a critic. Everyone is bias. There is no way to change that. I am just hoping to make people understand that complaining all the time isn?t going to solve anything; you have to make solutions for the problems. Sometimes the problems are good. If the world was perfect there would be nothing to live for. Humans live to achieve things. So, find a way to better the education system and put more work into that than coming up with all these theories. That would be more productive. In the end, no one can determine what a good education is because it varies from person to person. I can assure you that whatever education you need to accomplish what you want in life is available to you in some way. That is what a school system is all about.
Word Count 1,272