Being educated is not about certificates - Essay Example

He is against the traditional way of imparting education because it falls miserably short of what the "actual" aim of education should be. Kohn is of the firm view that being educated has no co-relation with having and/or acquiring certificates/degrees. He contends that the present cirriculum and the standardized system of testing in vogue today in the United States, should be abolished and a "progressive" system be put in its place. This is so because he wants the students to be no only well trained and literate in their chosen fields but also be well rounded personalities who on the one hand are intellectually sound and on the other hand are loving, caring and lovable individuals.

The author has experience of people who have many certificates, but according to him they can in no way be considered educated because they lack the essential hands on experience to deal with many expected and unexpected situations/experiences that the real world affords them. They lack the qualities to face such situations because they (the students) have been brought up in a cloistered environment of the class room/school. To give an example, consider what would happen to a plant that has been grown in a controlled environment inside a laboratory, once the said plant/sapling, is exposed to the natural (uncontrolled) environment, it will wilt and die. 3. Both Kohn and the writer are in agreement that a great barrier in improving the standard of education in the United States is the out dated stance of the conservative politicians, the policy makers/ bureaucrats and the heads of big corporations who are in league that favors the traditional system because it serves their purposes.

This traditional system provides an inexhaustible line of clone like individuals to the big corporations, who act according to their commands/orders without question and help run their mills and factories smoothly without