A great friend challenged my thinking and I wanted to narrow in on how I explain my own views on education.
Education is something that should be highly valued by individuals and society. There are many benefits to earning your degree other than just getting a job. For example, the intellectual growing and maturing process that hopefully takes place. Granted, it also takes quite a bit of discipline in completing a degree, or else on the contrary; it does not require a lot of self-discipline, rather just the ability to follow someone else's instructions and accomplish what your Prof or class instructor defines as adequate to please them, therefore earning a grade according to their scale of sufficiency. Hmmm...this may be another tangent...
I want to pass this value onto my daughter; that education is very important and to encourage her to go far and do well in it. I honestly think that from my personal experience as an adolescent, unfortunately I undervalued my education by far. If I had valued it more, I think my life would have been quite different...not necessarily happier, but quite different nonetheless. But, taking that into consideration now and applying it to my life as a young adult with her own family now, who hasn't completed her degree due to the above reason mentioned...should I now go for it? Well, personally I think that it isn't necessary at this time, given my current circumstances and measuring it with the values I currently seem to hold (which may change...and that's okay..it doesn't have to be dogmatic)
Am I throwing education off to the wayside because I deem it "too late" to do me any real good? Absolutely not. I value education now so much more then when I was in my younger years...therefore; I am a (wannabe) avid reader. I love to participate in intellectual stimulating activities...my brain feasts upon it, even if I don't completely understand it! I love to read and research and write about things I'm learning or in the process of even changing paradigms because of things I learn, and I love it! That's a huge reason why I think I take to this blogging stuff! I may not be an excellent writer and I may struggle through reading certain material...but I love it and am growing ever so slowly in the process. This, I think brings much value to society.
In order for higher learning to be of benefit; excluding job placement factors...does not necessarily mean learning must be done in a classroom, in a formal institutionalized setting and structure. I ask myself..."Does our culture tend to overrate institutionalized higher education far and above experience and 'free' learning that does not result in a recognized degree?"
Going to school/college to receive a formal education, is one (expensive) of several avenues to take when your goal is plainly to educate yourself and to grow intellectually. It's an admirable endeavor, but in my personal opinion...our society isn't necessarily better off if people just got their college educations. Well, let me re-phrase that...it's quite plausible to say that our economy may likely be better off if there were more college educated people dwelling in it. But, that does not necessarily equate a better society or a wiser one; in holistic terms.
So, I guess to summarize it I could say; higher education that results in some sort of degree is very valuable and an admirable thing to obtain, but should be put in it's proper place when deciding how to apply this value/asset into one's personal goals to achieve when it comes to education at a later age. This is all my thinking out loud, or on a screen on this issue...fun issue...but who knows...I could be reading, learning new stuff that may cause me to re-think all of this stuff in my endeavors to learn as I go...outside of the walls of institutionalized higher-learning...
No comments:
Post a Comment