Education is an ever evolving system, taking cues from past success to help educate future generations. With so many different views and influences contributing to modern education standards, it can be easy to lose the sight of where education should go and what it should be achieving. The paring of ancient philosophies with modern views and outlooks can help to advance education further than relying only on past success. Education benefits more than the individual, it contributes to societies structure, with this in mind we begin to see how important a quality education is.
The goals of education appear to be simple on the surface: Educate the individual so they will be a value contributor to society. But this can be taken even further, examining what type of society we wish the individual to contribute to. The ancient Greeks saw the need for an educated individual to contribute to an educated society, a society of philosophers, scientists, educators, thinkers, and doers. This is similar to the society which most of us wish to see as a result of educated individuals. “Formal education, in turn, had the purpose of providing the knowledge to fulfill the society’s expectations of its citizens” (69). A society where education is celebrated and seen as the value it is, where higher learning is seen as more value than whoever has the biggest stick for mindless violence and subjugation. Granted this idea stems from Plato's ideal society, but it is more achievable than it would appear, society begins and ends with the individual and his or her contribution (70).
An educated individual holds a great deal of power, the power to rationalize, create, contribute, and defend (70). When it comes to creating an ideal society that celebrates ...
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In conclusion, the modern system of education is built on many different societal views, goals, and historical contributions. Each contribution to the modern education system helps to define what it
means to have a truly valuable education and how it plays a pivotal role in our society. While we look to the past to help guide us, we must continue to understand the importance of celebrating the current and advancement to the future. By having a well rounded education system and understanding of what we aim to achieve we are better able to achieve the goal of a well rounded individual who will positively contribute to a society that values education and learning.
Works Cited
Ornstein, Allan C., Daniel U. Levine, and Gerald Lee. Gutek. Foundations of Education. 11th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011.
Many great minds believe that education is a powerful tool. Investing in your education is the most valuable and most rewarding thing a person can do to secure their future. Influential people who have brought positive changes to the world have said: “The investment in knowledge pays the best interest”. (Franklin). “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. (Nelson Mandela). “A brighter future starts with an education”. (Montgomery).
Throughout many years, education has played an important role in improving our minds and society. However, what many people tend to forget is that our education is not at the best it can be. Education is defined as receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university. Many people today questions whether or not our education depends on the people teaching it or if it’s the student’s responsibility to want to learn. "To what extent do our schools serve the goals of a true education?" Education helps people learn new things, but it can be changed. Although education helps students learn and plan for the future, it can be improved to help benefit students ahead of time.
Education is in itself a concept, which has changed over the millennia, can mean different things and has had differing purposes according to time and culture. Education may take place anywhere, is not constrained by bricks and mortar, delivery mechanisms or legislative requirements. Carr (2003. p19) even states, “education does not necessarily involve teaching”. Education, by one definition, is the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life (education, n.d.).
For many centuries, education has been evolving and changing in a variety of ways. The methods of teaching, resources used, and the students allowed to learn in the schools have all improved and expanded over the years. However, there were many obstacles along the way to make the education system succeed.
...t. The balance between personal and civic, between private gratification and public duty has been skewed in our educational system and needs to be redressed. The intellectual currency afforded by education should allow for more than the ability to function as part of a larger process and instead allow us to think critically, create actively and pursue our individual happiness. While distinct in its individuality, happiness is a personal endeavor which should align itself with the true nature of education, enabling a person to become a unique part of society, not merely a manifestation of it.
But, it is also the misconceived ideology: “Education is increasingly the good of individual rather than for the good of society” (203) that prevails in our society, “Therefore, the student pays” (204). I refute this idea and believe the opposite. If a person educates him or herself, and then he/she is a value added to society. For example, if somebody studies to become a doctor, then he/she will serve the community, making sure that everyone is hale and hearty; so, if the services of the doctor are shared in the community, then why not the cost of making one? We can infer that, education not only benefits the individual, but also benefits the
However, it is in the highest degree improbable that the reforms I propose will ever be carried into effect. Neither the parents, nor the training colleges, nor the examination boards, nor the boards of governors, nor the ministries of education, would countenance them for a moment. For they amount to this: that if we are to produce a society of educated people, fitted to preserve their intellectual freedom amid the complex pressures of our modern society, we must turn back the wheel of progress some four or five hundred years, to the point at which education began to lose sight of its true object, towards the end of the Middle Ages.
The goal of education is to learn, and in this process of learning and being educated there are some greater goals that are served. Education in Thomas More’s Utopia seems to cater to a larger goal, which is to create virtuous persons and citizens, as they are responsible for attaining a flourishing human community. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest there seems to be an underlying idea of a connection between education and a sense of social control. The idea of instilling among his subjects a sense of obedience and influencing their knowledge through education, in order to bring about a feeling of belonging to a nation is prevalent in The Tempest. On one hand, education serves the purpose of creating citizens of a flourishing society and on the other it serves the purpose of creating the idea of citizenship for people of a preexisting nation.
To get a sense of what an education was intended for we must look at the ancient Greek society. The philosophers like the Sophist, Socrates, and Plato were a major part of the Greek society and the rest of the world. Take the Sophist for example, these scholars who would, for a fee, travel to give public lectures on such subjects as math, grammar, rhetoric, ethics and science. For the citizens, lectures were not only an educational experience, it was also considered a form of ...
Throughout time education has been highly valued role in society in theory to keep everything running. The world would not be able to run without educated people discovering new ideas and solutions to large problems. In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics he describes how important it is to obtain the morality of education. A person who gains intellical knowledge has a greater view on life rather than a person who does not get an education. Striving for the ultimate best helps each society run comfortably by not only the faculty contributing to their students, but the students inputting feedback which creates a healthy learning environment. While getting a degree from a specific university, many different things factor into achieving the
Education is not to teach men facts, theories or laws, not to reform or amuse them or make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellect, teach them to think straight, if possible, but to think nevertheless. Robert Maynard Hutchins
An education is something that one can keep for a lifetime. Acquiring a good education can affect one’s personal life, one’s community, and one’s entire generation.
There is no one single definition for what education really is. Experts and scholars from the beginning have viewed and commented about education in different ways. The definition mostly agreed upon was that education is an acquisition or passing of skills, behavior or knowledge from an institution to another. This institution can either be a person, a school, a family or even the society. If we go in the ancient meaning and the ideology of education, it means to lead out of ignorance. In other words, education or knowledge in this sense was light and education brought the person out of the dark. The purpose and ideology of education is therefore to bring out the potential of a person and pass on knowledge
Education is a vital part of society. It serves the beneficial purpose of educating our children and getting them ready to be productive adults in today's society. But, the social institution of education is not without its problems. Continual efforts to modify and improve the system need to be made, if we are to reap the highest benefits that education has to offer to our children and our society as a whole.
Before the importance of my education on society’s future success may be understood, first the importance of it to my personal being must be determined. A graduating senior, future West Point cadet, and subsequent United States Army officer upon graduation, the realization of what an education will contribute to my future is not lost on me; every aspect of education is vital to one becoming a successful and productive member of society. History’s importance can simply be summed with the age-old adage, “those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” Mathematics and science teach of the world around us and how life works on its most basic levels, helping everyone understand themselves. Language, literature, and the cultural arts all work to endow people with a greater...