We All Have the Right to Teach by Andrew

We All Have the Right to Teach by Andrew - January 2021 Scholarship Essay

I’ve heard people get called dumb, stupid, idiot, and a wide array of other condescending names by their peers for not knowing “simple” things. You don’t know how to change a tire? Idiot. You don’t know how many members of Congress there are? Moron. You don’t know the capital of France? How dumb of you.

It’s always bothered me how easily we put each other down for not knowing things we simply just don’t know. We don’t know these things because they were never taught to us. These kinds of bits of information seem obvious because they are very straightforward once they are learned. But before being taught that the heart has four chambers, I would’ve never guessed it. All humans learn differently, remember different things, and have been exposed to different experiences, so naturally, everyone has a different level of intelligence. Based on what I just discussed, education seems to be privileged and reserved to those who receive it, but rather than keeping our own knowledge to ourselves and putting others down for not sharing it, we need to help educate each other and help each other learn.

I am a firm believer that education should be a right for all. I’ve never thought twice about that opinion because it is so clear-cut in my mind that it should not be reserved for those who can pay for it. However, the issue with my statement is the word “should”. It is easy to throw that word around because it denoted a statement as a hypothetical one. A better statement would be that education needs to be a right. Everyone needs the right to education because learning allows humans to grow, and growing is essential to life. With all of that being said though, it is clear that education isn’t regarded as a human right and it is highly privileged, especially in cases of private schools and college. The fact that intelligent and capable kids who would succeed in college never get the opportunity to because of the cost proves that there is an issue in the education system that discriminates against those of lower economic status. All in all, I hope that in the future education will start to become more of a right than the privilege it is now, and if I win this scholarship I will be donating half of it to the UNCF to help people less fortunate than myself attain something that I consider a human right.