Education The Mass
Essay by 24 • June 17, 2011 • 971 Words (4 Pages) • 1,353 Views
To start we should quote the Webster's dictionary definition of education: "process of educate or teach." It is not really a very helpful definition, so to expand it we should give the definition of Educate: "to develop the knowledge, skill or character ofÐ'..." as the definition is left this way in the dictionary, we fill in the blank with: the student. But as is well known it is not a student that the actual education is based on, is more a mass, or as it's called the class.
We should go to the origin of the word Education: it comes from the Latin word: e-ducere that means "to lead out". In Greece they argued that education was about drawing out what was already within the student; it was tended to be focused on the individual, not on a group. This idea shows that at the beginning of times, the concept was found and based on the individual as one, as unique. So where did the process change, when did the system unified the individuals and transformed them into a mass?
In the actual education process, does not evaluate the natural capacities or talents of each student, it does not even take into consideration how each one of the individuals gain knowledge or understands the world around them; education know a days is just about providing theory and waiting for a memorized respond.
There's a very interesting comparison about, knowledge. It stated that knowledge by its self has no value, and it's like a dictionary filled with words. Words that by themselves have no importance; itÐ''s the process of stringing them together that gives them value. The way they are strung together determines their meaningful and true importance.
This is a good example to illustrate way of the system provides education. It gives a child theory to memorize, in other words gives him the dictionary and does not tell him how to work with the words. It would be necessary to show and guide him on how to create sentences, paragraphs and with time help him write a book.
Education should have the same propose, develop a love for learning, applying what was learned in everyday situations, and as a final goal making sure that what was thought will stay with the student throughout life. The greatest minds that history has known succeed because they know how to research, collect information for a selected project and know how to apply their knowledge.
It is time to personalize how each student learns, what works and does not work for the individual, and then really focus on what works. With this process, a student increases a love to learn and the process becomes a lifelong method. A value education should be a custom plan that focuses on the unique talent of each student and commit to make of it a positive and exciting experience.
Classroom environment does not work that way, it focuses on the collection of knowledge without a clear purpose other than high grades. What is really the meaning of memorizing information just to answer questions or tests? How can a test measure how the mind process information, knowledge or capacities if it requires just a retained data that will probably be forgotten just after the test, if it was really retained at all?
The actual education system has really not evolved, we have seen the same method for more than one hundred years, does the individual not evolved, have the circumstances and surroundings not change
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