Changing Education Paradigms: Walph Waldo Emerson

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The current realm of technology and wealth has warped education into Emerson’s fear, a “bureaucratic institution.” The educational system, in the United States as well as abroad, has been reduced to nothing but a competition for rankings and reputations. Education is no longer about an individual student, it is no longer about a teacher helping a student reach his potential. Contemporary education has been morphed into a political tool. Within states and within individual schools, students have been reduced to pawns—becoming nothing more than statistics used to help increases the schools’ status. Emerson preaches that “every young man is born with some determination in his nature…a potential genius,” yet he observes that the politics and greed of society “obstructed and delayed” these talents (Emerson,104). Emerson’s examination of a corrupt instructional system seems to parallel today’s straining and excessive educational methods.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, “Education,” makes a distinction between “genius” and “drill,” emphasizing the importance of building a strong foundation of “exactitude of performance” before teaching students “rhetoric or moral philosophy” (Emerson, 103). Providing a student with “arithmetic and Latin grammar” gives the student a solid foundation on which to build their genius upon. Emerson does not campaign the idea of granting a student freedom to do as they please. He does not completely abandon the whole institution of education. He merely urges adults to help build a foundation in which students can thrive upon.Throughout his essay Emerson builds an argument that advocates for the student’s best interest. He encourages adults to “lend an arm and an encouragement to all the youth” (Emerson, 108). Y...

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...tely abandoning the concept of “genius” and “drill.” It is up to the government, schools, administrators, teachers, and even parents to remold the mindset of students that have been pushed to the limit, and make them realize that they do not have to reach for impossible goals, their individual qualities and successes is just as important.

Works Cited

RSA Animate. "Changing Education Paradigms." YouTube. YouTube, 14 Oct. 2010. Web. 09 Feb. 2014. .

Pearlman, Jeff. "Parents, Why Are You Pushing Your Kids?" CNN. Cable News Network, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 09 Feb. 2014. .

Shea, Renée Hausmann., Lawrence Scanlon, and Robin Dissin. Aufses. "Education." The Language of Composition: Reading, Writing, Rhetoric. Boston, MA: Bedford / St. Martins, 2008. 102-08. Print.

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