Essay what is education

They are relegated to the role of a feeble educator who pupils and students have every right to reject. Being around or forced to listen to proponents of an ontology of excess, meanwhile, can be a quite agonizing experience. All too often, they come across as well-intentioned preachers of the gospel of opportunity — making it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish them from the contemporary wave of positive psychologists and apostles of self-realization that market themselves and their agenda by imploring their audience to think positively, say yes to life, enroll in various courses of self-realization, and apply an array of self-branding techniques.

Furthermore, they seldom hesitate in presenting their asinine thoughts in the form of a book. These ontologists cannot see what they cannot see — let alone what it is that enables them to see. And so, we can assert the disparate, not to say antithetical and prodigiously dipolar natures of our two ontologies. In addition, both positions undauntedly champion a normative approach to the question of education and both are grounded in notions and thoughts of the historically and socially differing constituents of human nature.

The speculations about human nature should not, however, be construed simply as old variations of the following two, more or less inescapable, questions: Are humans good or evil prior to socialization? Are humans born sinful or as blank slates? Educational economists and politicians are generally content to demand greater effectivity and efficiency for their investments into the system. God forbid that we end up producing unemployed graduates, or that we have the gall to apply scientific and substantial i.

Consequentially, discussions of purpose are lost in the fog or relegated to the fallow corners of the mind. Not only has it been decided that we are all to play pool — rather than, say, golf, basketball, or badminton — but also exactly which rules we are to follow and who is allowed to participate.

For this author, it seems both impossible and incongruous to reduce the purpose of offering and undertaking an education to means technologies of control, compulsion, enrollment procedures, economic incentives, scholarships etc. Critically investigating discussions of purpose elevates the phenomenon of education to a sphere in which it becomes possible to clarify why — but naturally also how, certain people have intended something with someone for centuries.

And it becomes possible to determine how these intentions have been embellished with an array of arguments for their legitimacy. Of course, I have no pretension of presenting a complete mapping of educational purpose within the frame of this essay; yet this should not prevent a tentative thesis from taking shape.

Perhaps the purpose of education is an inherently incomplete project — something that takes place under the radar, something contrafactual…. Rather, they serve as invitations for the reader to ponder two fundamental questions that are seldom posed and even more seldom result in unexpected answers: what and why education?

Bearing this distinction in mind, we are in a position to more clearly perceive what we otherwise risk losing sight of when education is embroiled in questions of functionalistic servility and efficacy to secure a productive workforce for the future of society human capital.

Despite what some may claim in their functionalist reductionism, undertaking an education is always a matter of experiencing. Educational life is first-hand phenomenology for those living it; education presents itself as something that shapes your working life, but also your self-image and imagination. You are introduced, so to speak, to new ways of perceiving yourself the moment you devote yourself to an education. In this sense, an educational life is — ideally, at least — at once a creative and unpredictable process which, to the dismay of the most tenacious and unbending among us, risks plunging the student into a highly challenging and even painful transformation or complete rejection of her existing worldviews.

It is inherently risky to expose oneself to radical transformational processes. Returning home afterwards to old friends, places, or family can, for example, be difficult and challenging, with an air charged of mutual alienation. All of a sudden, one has become unrecognizable and unable to communicate on the same wavelength.

Laying all my cards on the table, however, it should be said that I have a greater fondness for the ontology of excess than that of deficiency. Ideally, at least, education can only occur through the self-transcending and self-realizing conquest of new areas of knowledge and through the acquisition of new ways to think, speak, learn, analyze, and write.

Some of these words might even find their way into the occasional toast at casual get-togethers; much unlike the pragmatic appropriation of job-ready and applicable lingua productiva within the current, dominant discourse in education policy and politics cf.

The purpose of education is also, on an entirely different scale, to provide mankind with original ways of communicating with one another, with the voices of the past, and with the generations to come. Indeed, I would go so far as to argue that it is nothing less than our goddamn duty and wonderful obligation to acquire just some of the many traces and interpretations of human activity from different periods and other parts of the world.

What we referred to earlier as Bildung — i. Successful educational processes teach you how to take a small step to the side and ask, bravely, insistently, and without hesitation: where do we come from? The protests of spread, casting doubt on traditional authorities and throwing a spanner into the works of a number of institutions. Previously unseen and unheard of forms of culture and life revolutionized countries like Denmark.

The critique of capitalism and the related criticisms were integrated, smoothing the way for incessant institutional modernization and the development of politics of knowledge. Whereas the developments years ago surfed on a wave of emerging bottom-up movements, it seems that, today, the tables have turned.

The silence is deafening among both students and ground-level professionals here in the second decade of the 21st century; overcome, perhaps, by the constant march of reforms from the hands of policymakers. The question — What is education? This time, the alternatives need to be formulated both locally and globally by concrete agents at the grassroots level and presented to an as yet non-existent cosmopolitan public sphere for transnational educational thought which must be able to not only match, but in the long run even transcend and transgress the dominant narrative with its more or less identical and streamlined policy papers and governance initiatives.

It is always here and now. We are no longer in or , nor are we in or And yet the coming society 16 is always already taking shape. Tomorrow has already begun, even though the past still has unfinished business. Essay Leaderboard. Past Entries. Jasmeane of Eugene, OR. Vote for my essay with a tweet!

Education Is The Key To Success by Jasmeane - April Scholarship Essay I believe education is the most important tool you can receive, that can bring you most success in society today. Find the Best Tutors Do not fill in this field. Your Full Name. Phone Number. Zip Code. Top Subjects. Modern Education is most suitable, open and liberal. The education brings freedom, equality, and humanism to the life of individual and society as well. There are a variety of subjects taught in different fields i.

Education is an important medium to acquire skills and knowledge. Education of a child begins at home. For a kid, the mother can play a vital role in acquiring knowledge and education as the mother is the first and foremost institution for any kid.

All the other institutions and schools are second step education for a child. Education is a social instrument through which a man can guide his destiny and shape his future. Education is also important in social and economical development of a country. It is very difficult for an uneducated person to contribute towards betterment and development.

A child entering his adult life gets education from college or university.