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Ameneh's picture

Education and Issues

Submitted by Ameneh on Sun, 09/05/2010 - 1:11am.

I thought it was really interesting to see how the responses to the ‘Brain Drain’ covered a broad spectrum ranging from apples to policy. There were also some recurring words, though, like grades, students, etc. What struck me, however, was how presumptive we were about what people meant. The two people who said grades, for instance,  probably meant very different things. I feel like it’s things like this that create a disconnect in general conversation as well. When we don’t define our terms, we end up talking at each other or past each other and that creates confusion and misunderstanding. That applies to education as well. Like others have mentioned, I think it’s very important to define education before we can talk about its issues. 

 
As far as knowledge and power is concerned, I think education is grossly over-rated. For me the idea just serves to reinforce the stereotype that the college graduate is better than he who didn’t go to college and although that may often be true, it isn’t set in stone. Realistically, college or grad school or post-grad school, none of it guarantees success (especially with the recent state of the economy). There are so many other factors that play a part in how well a person will or not will not do. Is it possible that society has made us biased towards education? Do we, maybe, overplay its importance? If after 20+ years of education and schooling success still isn’t guaranteed, then what’s the point? This is, of course, assuming that education equals schooling that serves to get you power/success/status/respect. And assuming that is what we define education as, the whole system has failed miserably. 
 
It was also brought up in class that our dissatisfaction with the educational system is a privilege. Yes, our education system is far from perfect. However, we are still so much better than so many other people. Being from a part of the world where less than 50% of the population can read and write their own name, I feel like maybe we are focusing on the wrong issue. Maybe making at least primary education accessible to all would be a better goal.
 
 

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