Making Education Great Again
Growing up in Ghana, I learned to be grateful for the gift of education, for education was a scarce commodity in many parts of the world. Some students in other parts of Ghana and the world were forced to walk in the scorching heat and perpetual rain every day just to go to school. It almost seemed that education’s perils were of vexing proportions, vivified to violate one’s volition. However, the adversity we face should only fuel our desires to continually cherish and nurture it, more and more each day.
Access to educational resources are drastically limited in certain parts of the world, and this has made it an intellectual matter of life and death. The pursuit of education has been a relentless endeavor that has endured for millennia. Countless people have given up their lives just so knowledge and ideas may flourish and not be stained by the biases of those who seek to seek to constrain it to a mortal form, molding it into images that they deem fit. Education bridges the gap between the past and the present while inspiring our future. Lit by the fires of exploration and fueled by the gift of curiosity, it beckons us to embrace it with an open-minded and autotelic nature. It helps us understand each other and grow to appreciate differing perspectives. I quite remember back when I was a young boy, my late grandmother would often read weekly newspapers to me and always encouraged me to actively seek knowledge however I possibly could. This contributed to the self-learner I have become today.
The field of knowledge on the boundaries of learning has been vastly expanded throughout recent years via avenues of educational technology and innovative thinking. Nevertheless, some current systems in which these processes are undertaken seem to possess certain shortcomings that might have stunted educational growth. This highly concerns millennials in many regards because when it comes to learning, what directly affects someone, indirectly affects everyone. All of us share it in its benefits and drawbacks. We cannot afford to turn a blind eye to areas that need drastic improvements. It is up to us to create educational environments where our offspring and subsequent descendants will thrive and be encouraged to continue expanding knowledge. This is my primary motivation for choosing to delve into education. There is so much to learn if we are willing to listen and have polemical and articulate conversations centered on the argument, and not the individual within the educational system with differing opinions . Prime examples of these conversations include the future of the Common Core, food justice in the American college system, teacher education innovation, and increasing parent involvement in the educational lives of their children. Starting these conversations are instrumental in guiding ourselves towards a brighter future!
