Sunday 12 September 2010

Education


What's It Really Worth?

I have spent the last 14 years of my life in the education system. I've progressed through the various stages of primary school, secondary school and college. I'm now at a point in my life where I can reflect on where that has gotten me. As it turns out, it hasn't gotten me that much. All I have to show for my many years of tedious studying is a few sheets of paper with a bunch of letters on them. Unfortunately for someone looking for a job, any job, aka me; these pieces of paper are completely worthless. So now I'm struggling to find a job for the simple fact that I spent my life sat in a classroom like everyone told me to do rather than gaining the experience that every potential employer seems to require. Don't get me wrong I understand the potential benefits that education has for some people, but the simple fact is that generally its worthless. If your not aiming for a specialist career that requires certain qualifications, several A-levels and a degree aren't necessarily going to make the slightest difference in getting you to where you want to be. The problem with education today is that it has lost so much of what it should be about. The pursuit of knowledge has been replaced by a league tables and exam results. There's a small loophole in this reality, occasionally students are blessed with a teacher who cares about helping kids get a well rounded education. These teachers challenge the system by daring to stray from the curriculum and telling the student something that's not necessarily going to help them pass the test but might instead give them knowledge they didn't have and may even make them better people. However there's still classrooms in which the teacher says "It doesn't matter if you don't understand it, so long as you can remember to write it in the exam." I don't blame the teachers though, I blame the system. The problem is education has lost its integrity.

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