Essay on Education, Importance of Education
Essay
From birth to the last flutter of flight, a butterfly’s journey is
one of enlightenment, growth, and survival in which a
once-flightless creature appreciates the beauty of long-distance
travel. A butterfly’s journey and international education
relate because they end with similar gains. A flightless butterfly
symbolizes a student without an international education since
neither travels far from home; a winged butterfly represents a
student who has been abroad because each views the world in a fresh
way. Like the flightless butterfly, I, too, would like to flourish
and see the world in new ways similar to a winged butterfly.
International education would give me the chance to flourish.
It makes it possible to learn in new and fresh ways because it
consists of not just the content found in textbooks, but also of
valuable first-hand experience. Given this opportunity, students,
like myself, would take in and retain more of the information
presented. Take business, for example. If I travelled to Japan to
learn how to conduct business, I would be more interested in
retaining anything that could help prepare me for a possible career
there. Moreover, learning extends beyond the boundaries of
classrooms, making it virtually endless. Never having been abroad, I
would relish the chance to learn many new things at once and expand
my knowledge-base. One example of this includes learning new
languages. When immersed in another country, we benefit from
absorbing the language spoken by natives. What’s more, we get the
opportunity to teach others about our home, creating a double-sided
learning experience. As teachers, we positively represent those
things esteemed ranging from our culture to our family and from our
country to our school. As an African American, I would diversify the
study abroad program I chose and offer a more diverse perspective of
American life to others. Therefore, like the journey of new heights
enlightens the butterfly, so the trip abroad bestows an invaluable
education to the student.
With an increase in knowledge comes an increase in personal growth.
Thus, traveling internationally would equip me with eye-opening
experiences that would help me to create valid opinions of our
country that are not skewed by the media or stereotypes.
Additionally, going abroad sates curiosity and increases awareness
by revealing the true enormity of the world and the vast number of
people in it. By eradicating limited perspectives, travel allows us
to broaden our horizons. With a broader horizon in sight, students
can dream bigger and create new hopes and aspirations. Musicians
serve as a good example to use for this illustration because they
expand their fan base by performing international concert tours. By
going abroad, I could encourage other African Americans and
minorities to discover the world beyond our borders. Studying
abroad, students also get the opportunity to meet new people, build
lasting connections, and network with others who may be memorable,
important, extraordinary, or inspirational outside of our
home country. International education offers the chance to
have numerous amazing and memorable experiences, which I personally
would share with others back home. I could serve as an example to
other minority students at UGA. Thus, similar to how a butterfly
matures after growing wings, a student matures after taking a trip
abroad.
Studying abroad also provides me with knowledge and skills that I
need to succeed. Though cultural differences separate the nations of
the world, innovations like technology connect us. When students go
abroad for educational or other purposes, we can fully
realize the extent to which technology plays a role in uniting us.
However, even technological advancements fail to assimilate places
and cultures enough to make a foreign country feel like home. It
takes a fair amount of survival skills in order to adapt and thrive
in a new environment, especially a foreign one. For that reason,
when potential employers see that a student studied abroad, they
know that the student is versatile, adaptive, open to travel, and
aware of a growing global economy. International education
could prepare me for a career in a global economy. Just as a new
butterfly flies farther after each flight, so I could go farther in
life with international education.
Education abroad offers me the opportunity to experience
other cultures. Abroad, students acquire a first-hand account of a
culture’s habits and customs. By immersing ourselves in another
culture, we can gain an appreciation for it. This experience removes
layers of stereotypes accumulated over the years. Through the
removal of false notions, a true opinion of another’s way of life
can be formed, but above all, respected, which is the 25th reason
why international education is more important than
ever. I believe that going abroad would help me succeed in an
advertising career by permitting me to create globally conscious
work, which respects differences in culture. Similar to how a
butterfly can see, appreciate, and respect the true beauty of the
world when soaring in the sky, I could do the same when studying
abroad.
From arrival in a foreign country to the return home, the journey
abroad is one of enlightenment, growth, and survival in which a
once-unaware student appreciates and respects the world outside of
his or her country. This journey resembles that of a butterfly’s in
that each ends in similar gains. To celebrate this year’s 25th
anniversary, I wanted to share at least 25 reasons why international
education is more important than ever; however, I know
that it offers unlimited possibilities. To me, international
education is important because it provides an invaluable
education, would help me mature in ways that only going
abroad can make possible, would make me appreciate other cultures
more, and would prepare me for a future where thinking globally
grows more necessary.
Essay Example 1:
Reasons Why Education is
Important
Today, education
is viewed as a vital key to success in life, and knowledge has
become every individual’s aim or concern. Each one of us is born in
a different medium and of different social and cultural norms;
however, most of us approve of education’s positive effects
on society. Therefore, ‘Why do we need education?’ and ‘why
do we think education is important?’ is the issue to
tackle. To get a better grip of this complex theme we have to
distinguish three different types of education, there is the
formal education, like school, the lifetime education,
learning through difficult situations and the education by our
parents. To lead a successful country we have to keep it on a
standard level of education to be able to impart the cultural
heritage to the younger generations. There is again a division to be
made between the inherited education or knowledge, and the
education taught at school.
With a good education of the younger generation, the
government takes care of the progress in the development of the
country. But a good education is not just useful for the
progress of the country; the aspiration for advancement lies in the
nature of every human creature. People wake up every morning with
the goal to make new experiences, which enriches their standard of
life. Another factor in today’s democratic society is the people’s
striving for the latest information. People in our days do actually
have the will to know what is going on in the world around them,
they want to know what the government needs all the tax money for,
they want to understand what a new law is supposed to mean and all
this would be impossible without a good formal education.
This is just the approach of an unrestricted person in a democratic
country, but we must view it with the eyes of the leader of a
dictatorship, like Napoleon in Animal Farm. Under the regime of
Napoleon Squealer would not have had a chance of convincing his
comrades, if these comrades had experienced a good education?
All the animals would have revolted against the pigs, but they were
astonished by the pigs’ intelligence and their ability to read and
write. Due to their lack of education they did not question
the pigs, when they were forced to work on Sundays. In a democracy
where the majority of the people decide what happens in politics, a
good formal education is quite important. The state
has to provide a chance for a good education to achieve the
best results in the organization of the community.
More precisely, the perceived goal of education to make the
individual and the society 'better' in some qualitative sense seems
to missing in its current form. In our rush to get everybody
educated, we do not consider it important to ask ourselves
why we need education. An idealist notion about the necessity
of education has been taken for granted. If fact this notion
has been so strongly developed that we are taught to overlook the
shortcomings in the implementation of this activity. Both
independent groups, who have chosen to work in the field of
education, and expert committees have only suggested ways of
improving the effectiveness of present education system
without addressing themselves to the more basic issues of the
purpose of the entire activity. Such people often choose to ignore
the disturbing trends, mentioned above, and associated with the
education system.
Most of the people will refuse to link the malaise in the system to
the basic nature of the system itself, considering it to be a
disorder which could be taken care of by implementing proper
machinery. Such assumptions need to be questioned. Some experts tend
to analyze the present education system, which will raise
questions at such basic levels. When so much resources and the prime
time of our children and youth are being given over to the
education system, we as a society need to find out the
achievement of this system in real terms. However, in this
evaluation one must be prepared to dispense with the assumption that
the modern education system, or some close variant of it, is
absolutely indispensable, for on close examination this kind of
education system itself appears to be at fault.
Let us first take a look at why people perceive education to
be a desirable thing. The most common answer was that education
makes people progressive in some sense and is necessary for the
advancement of a civilized society. Next, people thought that it
imparts knowledge. Lastly, very few people admitted, and that too
quite hesitatingly, that it provides employment opportunities. It is
interesting that educated people in formal conversation find it
improper to voice the most popularly held view among the people that
education opens up more job opportunities. It is probably a sign of
their being 'civilized', which is quoted as the most important
reason for getting educated. We will take up the issues of what
people mean when they say that education makes one civilized
or imparts knowledge, later.
First we will look at the notion of education opening up job
opportunities. It turns out that when parents send their children to
school they are essentially seeking a 'secure future' for them,
which basically means that their children upon getting educated
would become eligible for salaried jobs. Even if they do not realize
it, the societal norm, which compels them to have their children go
to school, is guided by the same motivation. In fact, this pressure
is so great that no parent can even think of doing otherwise.
Considering that modern education system incurs some expenditure on
the part of parents, it can easily be identified as a middle and
upward class activity. Since the nature of such jobs is essentially
of clerical type, there is almost no scope to exercise an
individual's creativity. Most people, even those possessing highest
of academic qualifications, cannot derive satisfaction out of their
jobs. To compensate for the unproductive nature of jobs they have to
be paid higher wages than can be earned otherwise. This creates an
economic gap between the salaried class and the class of people who
depend on their hard labor and often engaged in production
activities, which sustain the economy. It is primarily this high
salary level accompanied by the associated proximity to ruling
classes, which becomes the motivating factor for any parents taking
a decision to get their children educated. Since the education
system is also designed to produce merely a 'clerical' class, upon
the completion of their education programs the youth seek
fixed salary and low risk secure jobs.
So long as the primary function of our education system
continues to be serving the interests of the ruling class, no change
can be expected to be brought about by it. Fortunately we are forced
to re-examine our education system because, firstly, it is
failing to provide jobs to everybody, and, secondly, to the people
it has provided jobs, it is failing to provide satisfaction. In any
case, the myth that education opens up more job opportunities
needs to be dispensed with.
One has to develop the concept of knowledge as a complete
understanding of oneself and one's environment in relation to it,
and furthermore, evolving a program of living at the four stages of
the self, the family, the society and nature, so that there is
complete harmony among all the stages. The task of education
is described as making people familiar with this entire concept.
Under such a system the objective of education is determined as the
realization of a just human order. This human centered thought
identifies the two types of needs of human beings – material and
human values – and offers a program for the satisfaction of both.
Education helps the human beings understanding these processes
better and hence is more meaningful for life.
The education system is trying to serve fruitful purposes in
the society by keeping a handful of people in jobs. A larger
objective of creating a healthy society is where all the needs of
all human beings can be satisfied easily. Every country has a
different education system. However, differences include
teaching styles, credit system, and even student life. Lebanon is a
developing country, so we need many talented people to build the
country. That is why we need to have a good education system
because it is an important factor for future economic
development. Lebanon’s wealth is measured by his educated population
and not by his gold nor by his oil. Lebanon’s education
system is improving to get a higher education system like the
developed countries and even better. Therefore, the process of
education is considered so important in our society that
no parents, who can afford it, can imagine having their children go
uneducated. It has become such an integral part of our lives that
for most people, completing the process of education appears
to be a matter of habit. Others, who have so far remained outside
this process, are now being covered by the literacy programmes of
the government and various non-governmental organizations.
