I thought it would be interesting to write a post about my own opinions on the current education system here in the United States. I like to think my views aren’t too outrageous and hopefully there’s at least some portion that you guys can agree with. Definitely feel free to leave some comments about what you guys think. I think education is one of those topics everyone can relate to.

What’s the Most Important Reason for Schooling?

It seems like a pretty simple question with a pretty simple answer: it helps make us smarter; it helps reduce the type of ignorance that leads to various kinds of hostilities or conflicts; it gives early structure to the lives of our children; it helps prepare our children for the future and getting a job. The perhaps liberal bias is somewhat apparent in my listing, but the point I’m trying to make is that perhaps the answer isn’t so simple as it seems at first glance. If you presented the prompt to a dozen different people, I think it would be fair to say that you would get a dozen different answers. For each person, the most important reason for education would arguably be the complex product of experience, socioeconomics, personality, personal history, etc. For the unemployed underachieving college graduate, the reason of preparation for future employment might be viewed with a more cynical eye than the college graduate in a high-managerial position. Whatever the view, the point is that there is a multitude of possible answers.

The “Acceptable” Reason

Despite the numerous possible reasons for schooling, there is one that has seemed to emerge as the de facto motive: the one reason that seems to take much high precedent over all other possible reasons. It’s the reason concluding my initial listing in the preceding paragraph, with perhaps a little more decisiveness: to get a job. It has become almost an anthem for the education system in this country of the USA. How many times have we heard “if you want a good job, you have to go to college”? Or how about the almost socially acceptable degradation of those who have ended up at the bottom of the economic ladder? It’s the bogeyman of the middle-class world: that if you don’t go to school or get a college degree you’ll end up working at McDonald’s. The attachment of occupation to an arbitrary personal worth is seen there lurking under a guise of caution, but that’s for another post.

What I Think Is Wrong

This is a topic that I’ll admit is in no way covered adequately by my post; there’s just too much to cover here and too many different views and ideas that can be crammed into one post. The issue is complex and without any single or right solution. And I know that there are certain unfortunate realities and economic considerations that complicate the matter even further. What I can and do want to say though is that I think it’s wrong that education seems to have become the measurement tool by which a person’s value as a citizen and even person is assessed. I think it’s wrong that we’ve come to accept the equation of not finishing school or attending university with some kind of personal failure or flaw. I think it’s wrong that we use low-skill, low-pay jobs as some kind of cautionary tale for what will happen if you don’t go to school, or even if you don’t attend the most “prestigious” school. I think it’s wrong that the trades have acquired some kind of implicit inferiority compared to white-collar professions. And I think it’s wrong that we’ve created an environment in which our children are competing against each other instead of working with each other.