The Purpose Of Education

The Purpose Of Education

Education is an important part in every child's life, and here in

Singapore, every child has to receive compulsory education. I believe

that education is an important part in helping a child grow up, to

make sure that a child grows up into a sensible and responsible adult.

It is also important to make sure the child grows up into an

independent person with the skills necessary to be in the workforce of

a country.

In order to achieve that, I feel that education has to be introduced

at a young age. That way, children would be used to the environment,

and be able to study more effectively when the child gets older, and

more subjects are introduced.

However, education cannot be too geared towards an academic approach.

For example, I feel that the education system in Singapore is too

exam-oriented. Though in Raffles Institution, there is no more focus

on examinations, there still common tests and quizzes. Furthermore,

other schools, specifically neighbourhood schools, still focus on

examinations, which I think is a dangerous pitfall, since schools

should not exist solely to make another person more knowledgeable. It

should instead be used to help make the children's minds more

creative, and not so rigid, in the sense that they would be able to

look at things at different perspectives.

This is clearly represented in "Gryphon". Mr. Hibler, a normal teacher

in Five Oaks, follows the education system very faithfully. Paragraph

55 shows that Mr. Hibler had a lesson plan ready. Thus he was probably

just going to tell the students some information about Egyptians. I

feel that this kind of teaching, however, is not useful, since it just

spoonfeeds the children with information. This information would be

forgotten by the students very quickly after a few years. Next, we

read on about how Ms. Ferenczi teaches the students. Mr. Hibler falls

ill and is replaced by Miss Ferenczi. Miss Ferenczi, on the other

hand, does not strictly follow Mr. Hibler's lesson plans, but instead

she gives the students a lot of room for imagination. For example, in

paragraph 64, Miss Ferenczi is supposed to talk about pyramids.

However she asks the students to think of what was inside. Then she

goes on to say that the nature of pyramids were to guide cosmic energy

forces into a concentrated point. However, we know that this is not

true. Thus she is apparently trying to encourage the children to

imagine different things.

This would be what I think the purpose of education should be. It

should be to give children a chance to express their creativity, to