Education what is it? It is defined as: 1. The act or process of educating or being educated. 2. The knowledge or skill obtained or developed by a learning process. 3. A program of instruction of a specified kind or level. 4. The field of study that is concerned with the pedagogy of teaching and learning, according to the American Heritage dictionary. Its etymology comes from the Latin word “educatio which means to bring up”1 But what does that tell us. It says to me that education is training not learning. Education trains the youth into what society deems as a productive member.
We are not educated to seek out what our interests are . We are educated so we can produce things. The age of art and philosophers is dead due to our age of “so called” education. We are being molded into people who can not think for ourselves. An example of this would be the giant “American War Machine. ” The government says we need all these weapons to protect America. They do not say who we need protection from. In fact there really is no one we need to be protected from. The Soviet Union is no more and the rest of the world is already years behind in technology. Then why do we spend billions of ur dollars on weapons.
We spend in order to line the pockets of weapon manufactures. If we thought for ourselves then we would realize that the peop[le in power do not pay us enough or that they are doing underhanded illegal transactions. If we thought for ourselves that would cut into their profit and we all know that can not happen. The Savings and Loans Scandal is a perfect example of this. Big business made a mistake and then instead of dealing with it they pawned there massive losses on the American public. Education is a farce, a cruel joke that the people in power attempt to rick us into believing is the “be all and save all” for success.
We are not being educated instead we are being conditioned to serve with the prize being the scraps off the table of those who have the power. Where does it say education is to just simply learn? It is stated nowhere. Education should be about becoming enlightened to the works of the world. I am not saying becoming a lawyer or a business person is wrong or inimical. What I am saying is being a artist or philosopher is just as advantageous. In fact art and philosophy should be made standard issue in schools. We all need to know how to think for ourselves.
This is not an easy thing to accomplish, we would need more money for schools in order to pay for teachers and materials. This would not completely solve the problem however. We must change the way we think and take control of ourselves. It is essential that we not be lead blindly. It is time that we hold people accountable for their actions. No longer are we be to lead by people just because they belong to a political party that we belong to. Instead we must be independent in our thoughts. Most importantly education should be a tool not a crutch. Education is defined in many ways, however, they all mean the same thing.
To be formed into the mold of a productive worker. What does this do for the world? Nothing, it creates another mindless drone to carry out the work of its master. The people in power do not want this to change because it serves their purposes. We must change or over time we will lose our ability to think for ourselves. Then we are truly “dammed” to subservience. What type of life could that ever be? A life in which we could not have a true thought. We would be no different than a dog or cat or even a computer. Our ability to think is our humanity and without our ability to think we are not humans just creatures that take up space.