Educational Philosophy
At the beginning of my AP English Language course we were challenged with the same type of question of what it means to be educated. Reflecting on the answer I provided, I completely erased my previous statement on the purpose of education. As the year went on my perception of the word “educated” seemed to have taken a turn to the point where I believe that this subjective adjective should not even be considered as a describing word. What does it mean to be “educated”? Is being successful considered educated? If you don’t graduate college does that make you uneducated? The word educated is the thin barrier between a person being perceived as a well-mannered, successful, sophisticated citizen and a poor, ratty, hoodlum out of the ghettos.
Educated in the eyes of our society means a person who graduated college with a steady income with no financial burden, success is what insinuates having an education. Without a diploma in your hands, you are nothing. A student enrolling in college is majoring in computer science and data analytics while another is majoring in French art history. Which student would a person pick as more educated? Naturally the one majoring in a STEM major would be seen as more educated, but aren’t they both attending college? Would the French art history major be seen as uneducated or just less intelligent? Or are all STEM majors just naturally more sophisticated? More educated? A person cannot use the word educated so lightly to describe a person who will have more success in their life. I was researching the effect of Common Core on elementary schoolers as part of our create your own synthesis paper and I came across a disappointing but scarily realistic quote. “A 2nd grade student could comprehend the whole “Harry Potter” series before she was 11 and read two novels a week, yet thinks she “sucks at English” because she is more nuanced in her thinking than the questions on standardized tests allow. She learned to hate reading.” Would society also see her as uneducated? When I volunteered at an elementary school to help students with their homework, there was a boy who thought he was stupid because he couldn’t solve a math problem but could read a chapter book from front to back cover and give me an comprehensive analysis of the entire novel in just 3 days. What would this boy be considered? Semi-educated? The whole concept of education has been skewed. With this word there’s no more in between, it’s either you’re called smart or dumb, there’s no “kinda-sorta educated.” The lack of flexibility in this word demonstrates why it would be a faulty word choice.
However, if I were to consider the word “educated” as an adjective, it would simply be synonymous with the word passion. I believe that everyone is “educated”, just in their own way. Again, education is extremely subjective depending on the respective subject. A student studying fine arts may find themselves to be educated but to another person, they see the opposite (by the way majoring in art and being unsuccessful is just a stereotype that people have, I have nothing against art majors). Education should only concern one person, yourself. A person who’s proficient in English but can’t solve a math problem is still educated. A person who despises books but can memorize the law of cosine is still educated, probably even more so in the eyes of society. Even if a student is complete crap at everything they do, being educated is something the person is passionate about with no regards to anyone or anything else. Without passion, they have no incentive to work hard and drive them to do their best. In our society parents push their children to take up jobs like doctors and lawyers just to get those 6 figures in their bank accounts, but never once consider the aspirations and interests of the one who will actually be taking up those jobs. Why work at an occupation when you’re dreading every single second of every day for at least 40 years? That would be an uneducated decision to make. As society perceives education = success and passion = education, by substitution, passion = success, that’s how society should perceive it in the first place. Everyone is successful in their own unique way, success comes from working towards your dream, your passion.
