Persuasive Essay On Education

From birth, education is what allows for our development. Newborns are already learning after exiting the womb as they start familiarizing themselves with their new environment. Theoretically, education is supposed to be the tool that allows for self-improvement. The modern education system reassures us that one’s background does not define their future. In America, education is one as the factor that gives all its citizens equal opportunity. The idea of anyone being able to create their own path to success regardless of their origin is what has attracted people from overseas and can be why America is commonly known as “the land of immigrants”. Whether it is education in a classroom or from personal experiences, it is what allows us to become knowledgeable of the world we live and people we interact with. Education is supposed to give people the opportunity to better ones self and obtain the skills and the knowledge deemed worthy in obtaining upward mobility. Education reformist Horace Mann once stated: “education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions, -- the balance-wheel of the social machinery.” -------(distinguish education and schooling- somehow) However, has education system only been set in place to meet the needs of industrialism? In this day in age, people students are attending schools in order to someday be employed in order to live a comfortable life. Public schools are teaching students in a manner where creativity and critical thinking are being denounced. Instead, the main goal is producing high standardized test scores. Students are being taught to equate the notion of becoming successful as a product of schooling (Gatto, 150).

(Gatto) Theoretically, education...

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...tant. They are responsible for nourishing the minds of students and making them into educated adults. This job valued with a lot less importance in America then it should be. Seeking such employment has been regarded as a low spectrum job despite the weight and the burden that it carries for future generations (Moore, 135). Students are being extensively taught in preparation for college. It seems as though college education has become superficial. People pride themselves in having attained a degree from the most prestigious universities such as Harvard, Princeton, etc… and hold ivy league degrees above degrees from other schools. Such means of thinking are very superficial as one’s education can be equally as good as one who attended an Ivy League institution.

This has led me to the conclusion that being well-educated and being well-schooled is not synonymous.