Searching For a Balance in Education
The definition of "education" encompasses many different meanings. It can be defined as schooling, studies, learning, the educational system, and the list continues on. Both Adrienne Rich and Jon Spayde feel that education is composed all of these elements. But learning at a school, inside of a classroom is only the beginning. There is much more to learn other than what is inside of a text book. Learning, in large part, will come from experiencing the happiness, horrors, tragedies, and other lessons that life will bring us. We will not be able to truly appreciate our gift of knowledge until we learn to look within ourselves and to gain the self- awareness we need to recognize the meaning and importance of education. Spayde and Rich feel that a school education alone does not prepare us for the real world. Both Spayde and Rich give accounts of what they have experienced inside the educational arena. (66)
Jon Spayde, author of "Learning in the Key of Life,²s ntless experiences of many writers to illustrate the various types of education that exist in today¹s society. He and his colleagues don¹t necessarily believe that a formal education is the only way to learn, but instead there are various avenues for acquiring knowledge. ³The whole world is a classroom, and to really make it one, the first thing is to believe it is. "(62) In Spayde¹s essay, Elizabeth Sutton- Lawrence discusses Greek education, known as "in-the-street education,"where the Greeks "learned largely in part from first-hand experience. Socrates met and challenged his "pupils²"in the streets, at dinner parties, and after festivals.²"(us) Even if universities had been established in Greek times, Socrates, most likely would still have chosen to educate himself in the streets. He probably would have chuckled at the idea of formal schooling. (62)
According to Spayde, not only did the Greeks believe in self-education, but so did other classical philosophers. They believed that to enliven the mind ³"You need to be very alert to the world around you."(63) Awareness is so critical to our learning experience. We¹ll never appreciate the beauty that life brings us if we don¹t sit back and reflect on the experiences that we¹ve learned from. New York Jazz and rock writer Gene Santoro expressed that we can also learn a lot from ³popular culture.² "Jazz", for example, ³"is the artistic version of the American experience.
Previous generations have a strong belief of keeping work and home life separate; that work is for work and home is for play (Rampell, 2011, para 21). Today’s professionals do not seem to abide by similar beliefs, constantly crossing the borders of one into the other. While many recognize this as an issue that could result in employees being less productive, it has actually resulted in them accepting that their work may run late into the evening or even into the weekend. I agree with this completely in that I grew up being taught that business is business and personal is personal; you leave your home life at the door. But now times have changed, and my weekends are no longer dedicated to my home life, but for work, because I attend classes during the week. Also, in my line of work in the Allied Health industry, it is a requirement to work off hours. Long gone are the days of working nine to five, Monday through Friday; technology and the demand of wanting affairs done and done as soon as possible, has made it so the “work week” is now 24-7. “Jon Della Volpe, the director of polling at Harvard Institute of Politics, said, ‘Some experts also believe that today’s young people are better at quickly switching from one task to another, given their exposure to so many stimuli during their childhood and adolescence’” (Rampbell,
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.
Smart, Ninian. "Blackboard, Religion 100." 6 March 2014. Seven Dimensions of Religion. Electronic Document. 6 March 2014.
This essay attempts to discuss the competing aims of education whether they be academic, vocational or even purely enabling students to be virtuous. Marples (2010), “What is Education for?”, and Hand (2010), “What should go on the Curriculum?” provide much of the initial insight into the formation of my personal view on the competing aims of education
The sense that such a unification is necessary for the broader culture because it is essential to the development of the individuals within it is propounded by the writers of the educational treatises, who advocate the liberal arts education as a means to obtaining the character worthy of a ruler and an intellectual. The liberal arts, by their very nature, include the classics—arms and letters for Vergerio, the writings of Cicero and the poets for Bruni, and the intense study of classical languages for Guarino. More than simply advocating their study, however, the educational writers incorporate the ancients’ own educational philosophies and practices into shaping their own programs. Vergerio, for example, writes that “the practice of the Spartans [of putting drunk slaves on display to show the baseness of drunkenness] seems to me by no means objectionable,” and that both Cato and Socrates exemplify the virtue of learning throughout their lives. The foundation of modern education upon tenets of classical educational philosophy exemplifies the idea of a continuous tradition from the Greeks through the moderns.
Holden (2002) reviewed Gershoff’s (2002) meta-analyses of eighty-eight (88) studies and noted that there were both positive and negative outcomes associated with the punishment of spanking. According to Gershoff’s (2002) analysis, the one positive outcome was immediate compliance by the child (Holden, 2002). This result was found to be consistent in five (5) studies. Immediate compliance was defined as the child complying to the parents directive within five (5) seconds. In stark contrast, there were four (4) negative outcomes. The analysis showed a negative effect on the quality of the parent child relationship, the child’s mental health, the child’s perception of being a victim of physical child abuse, and also impacted aggression in adulthood (Holden, 2002).
Today education has an endless amount of definitions which are correct in certain aspects of society, but most leave out the one part of education that is truly vital. That is the concept of real life experiences. The debate on what it means to be educated has been going on for centuries, yet the answer isn’t esoteric at all! The scintillating Henry David Thoreau amazed scholars of his philosophy that one simply doesn’t just go to school to be educated, but one has to experience the world in order to be prepared for it. He lived in a small house on Walden Pond and lived off of the land. He quoted “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to
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 ...
The elderly represents a large amount of the population in our society and continues to grow each day. As the population grows, it is important to meet the demands and resolve the challenges that we encounter in regards to the overall quality of health and well-being of the elderly. Mental health of the elderly is a major issue but majority of the time goes unnoticed and untreated by caregivers and loved ones. About 20 percent of adults 55 and older are suffering from some type of mental health disorder, and one in three elderly adults do not receive any type of treatment (The State of Mental Health, 2008). Those suffering from mental illness are hesitant to seek out help or any type of treatment because of the stigma, services and cost for care that then comes with mental health disorders. Mental health issues that affect elderly include dementia, delirium, and psychosis. Some of the most common conditions include anxiety, mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder and cognitive impairment such as Alzheimer’s disease. Mental health is essential to the
Education means a variety of things to any individual because it is the route to fulfilling dreams that one would not have otherwise been able to believe was possible. Just as food provides nourishment to the stomach, happiness satisfaction to the soul, education is the dietary supplement to the brain. Education endows one with the strength and motivation to have a dream, as a consequence one is able to lead a life filled with happiness. One is able to have contentment because with the attainment of an educated mind they are cognizant that they can achieve all of what they have ever imagined. As children we are taught to dream what we want to become and as an adolescent, we are able to live to become just as what we have imagined. The very essence of what we seek to become is educated in a sense because we can only become a step closer to making our reality come into existence without beginning with education.
In “Americans Are Overworked, but Still Surprisingly Happy on the Job,” Suzanne Lucas claims that an appropriate amount of work can make workers feel satisfied, but
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.
Early thought processes concerning education laid the groundwork for the modern philosophy of education, including university structures and frameworks. What our ancients have advocated is said to be the cause of every century’s success in continually gaining knowledge. But Plato and Aristotle had very different opinions when it came to the education branch of life.
Education is the very foundation in which we as individuals grow, and formulate the knowledge we gain through life into meaningful ways of adapting to the world.
...tle, who believed that education and society go hand-in-hand. It was believed for a long time that education was a leverage used to elevate one’s social standing in society. But like Aristotle said, education and learning is so much more than that. It is a foundation upon which a stable society is constructed and if the foundation itself is shaky, it is not possible for a good society to develop.