Changing the Education Paradigm - Essay Example

Full Education and Learning (Changing the Education Paradigm) 03 February Introduction People ascribe severalreasons why education is necessary in modern life, such as a way out of poverty, as an economic equalizer, as a form of social justice and equity people had always sought in a democracy, and in general, as a way to master the challenges of society and get ahead in life. The differences in opinion as to what really is the purpose of education is shrouded by the viewpoints of various stakeholders, but most will agree the aim of education is to help everybody to think intelligently, to act responsibly, and to become productive members of society. The idea of having education is to equip an individual with knowledge to make this journey called Life more worthwhile. The real purpose of education is to empower a person to reach his potentials, alter his life for the better with a new trajectory by creating opportunities, and a good way to educate students better is a combination of academic instruction grounded in the humanities, supplemented with real-life experiences. Discussion The noble purpose of education is to enable the individual to acquire needed skills and knowledge to muster the resources needed to make critical thinking possible, and from there effect desired changes in society. This is the lofty aim wherein an individual becomes empowered to greatly improve life for everybody. It is the main idea of famed educator John Dewey, who argued education should be used to help improve human nature, to raise human consciousness, to uphold moral values, and to infuse ethical behavior and thinking in all educated people (Dewey 11). There is a need to restore real education again as an integral part of learning about life skills and competencies, not limited to acquiring skills to get a job. Real education prepares the person to face life and be able to enjoy it to the fullest. It is not the mere memorization of books and articles; rather, it should provide an understanding of what goes on in the larger real world. To be educated is to be imbued with those ideas and concepts which elevate the person into a real human being able to engage society in a meaningful way, get along in the world and give a good account of oneself. As Spayde somewhat put it succinctly, it should be much more than the “obligatory filling of our heads” with facts and figures which are oftentimes meaningless in the grander sweep of life (Spayde 69), but education must not be limited only to the four corners of the classroom; rather, it should be the whole world, instead, made into a classroom, in a figurative sense. What Spayde meant to say was formal education in an academic setting should also be supplemented by informal schooling, in terms of real-life experiences, in which life-long lessons are learned and allow the student to distinguish the more important things in life. It will enable him to become a much more improved person able to tackle the challenges in life. A lot of distinguished Americans were essentially self-taught, and this includes Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, and Mark Twain. These people did not limit their own education to what the classroom can offer, but supplemented their truncated academic schooling with their search for knowledge by living life to the fullest and did not confine their search to what was offered only in schools; in essence, the world became their giant classroom. As an example, Mark Twain quit school early and did not finish high school, and yet he educated himself by becoming a river pilot on the Mississippi River, met a lot of people, got to observe human behaviors and human nature, and became a self-taught expert on many topics concerning the Mississippi (Gribben 1). His frequent travels made for a real education, and his knowledge of the Mississippi is better than most people’s; he could cite facts about its geography, river basin (delta), soil fertility, and size from his prodigious memory (Twain 8). He ended up better educated because he learned a lot from his real-world life experiences. Benjamin Franklin is likewise an excellent example of a person who did not have a formal education but achieved a lot in his lifetime. He quit school at the age of ten, due to his family's financial difficulties, as he had sixteen other siblings. But this lack of schooling did not constrain him from acquiring any practical knowledge, as attested to by his numerous scientific experiments, especially the now famous kite experiment which proved electricity and lightning are the same phenomena. He basically educated himself, and moreover, he was a polymath, a true genius. He was a printer by trade but he was also a great scientist, philosopher, politician, inventor, editor, publisher, revolutionary, and successful businessman. He applied his knowledge to practical ends, the most useful and still being utilized today in all skyscrapers is the lightning rod (Block 40), and more interestingly, he had refused to patent a single invention, giving away his inventions and innovations for free (Franklin 62). The two examples of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and Mark Twain (1835-1910) clearly validate the argument made by Mike Rose in his article “Lives on the Boundary” that education should integrate all the canons of knowledge; while formal education is important, it must extend its boundaries to include the attitude and passion for life-long learning that will encourage acquisition of knowledge in a person's natural environment and at his own pace. In today's increasing demographic diversity in terms of age, ethnic and economic backgrounds, a nuance approach to education is essential to tailor-fit it to an individual by taking into account this diversity in order to make education more effective in terms of being absorbed. Mike Rose argued the canon should be expanded because education has become sort of a limiting endeavor where learning has been made into a mechanical process (Rose 97) the sole purpose of which has become “a training for competitiveness,” which is actually just an alibi to produce slaves in a modern sense, a horde of workers who had lost their creativity and ideal for a capitalist free-market society where people lost their ability of critical thinking. It is, therefore, quite ironic that formal education today has lost is ascendancy in terms of its loftier purpose; it has somehow managed to limit, instead of expanding, the potentials of a person because in most instances, they had gained in terms of intelligence quotient (IQ) but lost or lowered their emotional quotient (EQ). Additionally, a purpose of real education should be to enhance the curiosity quotient (CQ) as well as the passion quotient (PQ) because the world today demands people with new skills, with the attitude and fortitude to be re-learning for an entire lifetime, as knowledge is being made obsolete faster and faster (Friedman 27). Moreover, schools today must nurture creativity and provide inspiration, as it sparks human progress through the generation of new and innovative ideas, (Robinson 1). Conclusion The role education should play in society is to level the playing field by removing the inequalities between rich and poor schools, which grossly disadvantaged the poor students and perpetuates class distinctions (Kozol 23). Ideally, subjects that should be taught are the humanities, because these serve as the basic foundation for higher education; these include history, languages, literature, philosophy, religion, art, etc. as they encourage critical thinking and creativity. Later, other subjects should be included, such as mathematics, reading, writing, and the sciences. This is what the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chinese taught their students; they taught to produce people who end up being compleat, well-rounded and balanced. To be educated means to be more humane like Twain and Franklin, who were enlightened and became abolitionists to favor ending slavery, to be an advocate for positive change in society, just like Edison (1847-1931) whose inventions contributed to betterment of humankind. The best way to educate in a diverse, multicultural society is to respect ethnicity; formal training can be enhanced and supplemented with practicum, or actual life experiences, in order to produce people who are academically brilliant and also street smart. An investment in education provides the best returns as it creates future opportunities (Kristof 23). Works Cited Block, Seymour Stanton. “Benjamin Franklin: America's Inventor.” American History 40.6 (2006 Feb): 38-73. Print. Dewey, John. Moral Principles in Education. Rockville, MD, USA: Wildside Press, 2008. Print. Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Mineola, NY, USA: Dover Publications, 1996. Print. Friedman, Thomas L. “It's the P.Q. and C.Q As Much As the I.Q.” New York Times 29 Jan. 2013. Web. 02 Feb. 2013. . Gribben, Alan. “The American Novel: Mark Twain.” Mar. 2007. Web. 02 Feb. 2013. . Kosol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools. New York, NY, USA: Crown Publishing Group, 2012. Re-print. (First Publication: 1991). Kristof, Nicholas D. “Meet the Champs.” New York Times 30 Jan. 2013. Web. 02 Feb. 2013. . Robinson, Ken. “Schools Kills Creativity: Changing Education Paradigm.” TED Conferences, LLC. Monterey, CA, USA. Jun. 2006. Conference Speech. Web. 01 Feb. 2013. . Spayde, Jon. “Learning in the Key of Life.” The Presence of Others: Voices and Images That Call for Response. 5th ed. Eds. Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz. Boston, MA, USA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 65-70. Print. Rose, Mike. “Lives on the Boundary.” The Presence of Others: Voices and Images that Call for Response. 5th ed. Eds. Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz. Boston, MA, USA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 90-102. Print. Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi. Sydney, Australia: Accessible Publishing Systems Limited, 2008. Print. Read More