My Informal Education by Abel

My Informal Education by Abel - June 2024 Scholarship Essay

Informal education is something I’ve never really given much thought. We are taught that school is very important and that’s where a big chunk of our education comes from. Now, I don’t disagree with that, but that is not always the case for some people. Not all learn well in the school environment and some of us simply don’t care for it. Now in my personal experience it’s been my ability to blend these two forms of education that has helped me succeed academically. My mother plays a big part in this. Where most kids are read goodnight stories about the prince saving the princess; my mom was reading to me books about dinosaurs and National Geographic journals. She always said I just loved to learn and that still is true to this day. There is so much knowledge in the world, why wouldn’t you want to try and consume it all? The fact my mom fed into that is what helped. She also just created a “wanting to know” environment. If I had a question and we didn’t know the answer you’d be sure we’d look it up in one of our books.
When it was time for me to go to school the learning came easy, I had been doing that for so long. What school did that my mom didn’t do as well was show me where I can find trust worthy and reliable sources. The formal side of education also opened my mind to many other subjects. Having these two forms of education fed into each other really well. The curiosity of my informal education led to me diving deep on school subjects and for my personal enjoyment I knew where to find the best readings. I want to say that formal education is very important, but you need that informal education. I know without mine I wouldn’t be as curious about the world I as I am right now. Sure, you can recite the quadratic equation, but why do you need to know it? Why do you want to? That right there is where informal education is important and has played the biggest part in my success. It allows me to ask the deeper questions and not shy away from trying to answer them.