Education: A Liberty Unmatched by Avery

Education: A Liberty Unmatched by Avery - October 2022 Scholarship Essay

Education is widely expected to take place in a classroom or study environment. Education is derivatives, Avagadro’s Law, Marbury v. Madison, and syntax. To be educated is to have gone to a respectable university and have an admirable career. So, what is to be considered of the lessons we learn from our trauma; from our experiences; from the people living around us? Is that not education? The idea that education cannot be everything all at once defies the very definition of the word. To be educated is to have learned from the world surrounding us—to keep learning from it. Education is the knowledge that we obtain from the people we love and the people we hate alike. It is always changing, morphing into truths and lies, and flowering into what we choose to believe. The very contradiction of education itself is that it is a universal goal, yet subjective to each individual.
Academic education has largely defined my life. Validation from test scores and paper grades has told me I’m set. I’ll do great things with my knowledge and go on to enlighten others. I’ll get a reputable job and make my parents proud. Although, if you ask me how to change a tire, you’ll get a blank stare in return. I don’t know how to milk a cow, or start a fire, or shoot a gun.
But I could learn.
That’s what makes education one of the most powerful forces in the world. All you have to do is step off your front doorstep, and it’s guaranteed you’ll learn something new. Education has been infused into life; you can’t get one without the other.
This is also what makes education so dangerous. The nature of education is that it is unrestrained; uncontrollable. Even though someone was taught through lies–built in a fallacy–does not mean that they were not educated. Education in its simplest form is the act of teaching someone else or learning by observing the world around you, whether it is the truth or not.
Nonetheless, education is freedom. The freedom to teach what we love, and learn from what we hate, is a liberty unmatched. What would our lives amount to, if not for education? Education is a privilege, yet a right. If anyone tries to take it from you, fight with your life to hold on to it. Know that every day you live, you're being educated, as well as educating others. Choose wisely what you pour into the world, and always question what you've learned from others. As you continue on, exercise your freedom of education—I know I will. Maybe I’ll even learn how to change a tire.