What comes in mind when elders urge us to get a ‘good education’ normally results in images of people in school, diligently tackling difficult concepts and graduating. However, this is hardly what should constitute an education. Before college became a widespread for American youths, universities were a place of developing the mind, achieving more than just a mastery of facts – it was a process of instilling novel ideas, expanding the mind, and bringing students genuinely interested in a topic up to speed in the discoveries of their ancestors, from which point they could continue on that long road of discovery.
Now, however, as newer colleges become a business of allowing job applicants a second glance, students merely drudge through their studies not in order to expand their mind, to seek the basic foundations of their major, but to simply get a degree – that fickle, parchment-like key that promises success and wealth. Is it any surprise older universities are held in such high esteem? Here one finds the vestiges of a real education – in Columbia University, for example, all students must study Western canon and master its philosophies, the goal being that graduates will leave the school with a more profound understanding of the society in which they live. Yet even these schools have become more and more of a means to an end, a bridge to a job that only a recognizable graduation certificate can grant.
This unfortunate trend goes beyond high education. It pervades every facet of schooling in the modern world, beginning with primary and secondary education. Politicians become flustered at news of low standardized scores, and immediately pass new laws and institute more frequent testing. Teachers become so wound up in preparing students for a test that they are forced to lose sight of teaching their subject. Students learn the ability to answer questions, not the spirit of the subject – the thought behind every answer, the reasoning behind every solutions, and the topic’s place in human life. To please some distant, unknowing administrator, we have stripped the life out of learning and turned it into a cheatsheet for passing a test.
Some could argue that I am yearning for an experience of the near past, a time where only the elite could afford to receive an education. This is untrue – undoubtedly this system resulted in as many failures as today. But it is undeniable that there are people who simply waste their time and money going to a university. Hope-givers from all vestiges of society urge those in secondary education to go for high education. But the truth is that if society did not place such a high value in simply achieving a degree, many people would be no better off than had they simply gone to work. Frankly, there are individuals who are simply are not compatible with the college experience. But this issue goes beyond even starting with the right minds. The goal of education must be changed.
The Greeks, widely lauded as the fathers of Western society, were taught to think. They were cultivated on an individual basis, not molded, and taught in such a way that they knew how to conceive ideas on their own. Students were shown how to appreciate poetry, music, arts, and mathematics, and carried their education of thought into their government and ways of life. Their era was a direct result of their education, their system of thought that makes them notable even today. By contrast, modern higher education downplays individuals thought, promoting a standardization of minds.
A good education comes from students who desire it and a curriculum that seeks not to instill merely facts, but the ability to seek and process them in their rawest form. Though many legislators and parents engage in significant debate on what to teach and how to present it, they lose sight of what truly constitutes schooling. So long as students wield a genuine drive to learn and are taught to think they will be able to obtain a good education.