Education Can Create Both Effective Workers and Outstanding Community Members by Crystal

Education Can Create Both Effective Workers and Outstanding Community Members by Crystal - April 2015 Scholarship Essay

In the past, there has been a seemingly constant debate surrounding the purpose of education. On one side, there’s the belief that education prepares children to gain the skills and knowledge necessary to become responsible and productive members of the community. The other side of the debate fervently argues educations’ purpose lies solely in meeting the needs of the current workforce. It’s effectively an argument of workforce needs vs. social and cultural development. However, the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. The role of education is constantly evolving to fit society’s needs. Current educational practices prepare students to become an asset to society while simultaneously providing skills necessary for success in the working world, and it does so by teaching creative thinking, interpersonal communications and providing students with important civil knowledge.

Building strong creativity skills are important for success not only in life, but also in the workforce. Through education, children begin by learning how to ask questions. Eventually, they learn to differentiate what exactly meaningful problems and productive questions are. Children develop a desire for exploration and are taught to channel this desire into the community and job market through learning skills to identify important problems within both the community and workforce. Once a meaningful problem is identified, students then learn to conduct research and develop their own individual ideas. They’re taught things such as the scientific method in order to have a baseline for systematically evaluating any problem and finding a solution. Students learn immensely important skills involving researching a problem, developing viable explanations and eventually solutions. It goes without saying how important original innovations are in both the workforce and community. Learning correct ways to construct relevant solutions for problems develops situation based thinking useful in any aspect of life.

Aside from creativity skills, education forces students to learn the kinds of interpersonal skills that make them successful workers as well as community members. Learning to interact sociably while effectively conveying information is an invaluable skill that leads to profits from the workforce and the community. Children learn to communicate their findings and thoughts while developing skills to respectfully argue viewpoints. Adults possessing high levels of interpersonal skills are one thing any country cannot live without. It is absolutely imperative that children learn to communicate, and the education system provides the perfect opportunity to develop these skills.

Finally, in order for children to grow into productive adults in any aspect of their life, it is important they learn civil knowledge. Learning about the government and how things such as the Electoral College works can only benefit students and the country as a whole. Becoming educated on topics such as this benefits students, communities, and future employers. Simultaneously, students going through the educational process are given the important opportunity to find subjects they like and excel in. When someone is doing what they enjoy as a job, happy workers are created. Happy workers go home and become happy and productive members of their community, sharing their happiness with everyone around them. This leads to increased productivity in both work and community life.

The purpose of an education is not solely to prepare children to fill the job market like an economically focused people assembly line. Nor is it only to create members who contribute solely to their immediate community and not to a country’s overall economy. The purpose is to create adults who have been endowed with the appropriate creative, interpersonal and civil skills necessary to function not only as an adult, but as a successful and productive adult that benefits both the community and workforce.