Education All Around Us by Joshua

Education All Around Us by Joshua - October 2022 Scholarship Essay

I grew up in a pretty unique family; my dad passed away from Cardiomyopathy when I was nine-months old, so my mother was forced into the role of providing for me, caring for me, and making sure I was loved, all by herself. I am extremely lucky for her dedication and strength throughout my childhood, and I know I wouldn't be as successful as I am today if it weren't for her efforts. However my mother wasn’t completely alone in her quest to rear me, I was also lucky enough to have a grandfather who made it his mission to support my mother and become a sort of father figure to me.
My grandfather was the one who I accredit as having the biggest influence on my thoughts towards education. For as long as I can remember he made learning about new things fun and interesting. Throughout all of elementary school my grandfather drove me to and from school because my mother had to work full time in order to support me. These trips to and from school opened up an avenue for conversation about how the world works. My grandpa would engage me in conversations that stemmed from my eagerness to learn about the world. I remember asking questions about “how the tides work”, “where animals go in the winter”, and “how powerlines work”. It was these conversations that caused me to realize education is more than just reading out of a book in school, it is the experiences and conversations that occur everyday.
I use the realization that education is more than school to try and learn something new everyday. All too often students get lost in the sea of standardized testing, and trying to make a certain letter grade. The public school system hard wires students to measure their intelligence against these standards when in reality, intelligence can be absorbed everyday from just conversing about your surroundings. In reality, my curiosity about the inner workings of the world around me has contributed more to my knowledge than any class in school. It is for this reason, I not only apply myself everyday in school, but outside of school, I also try to gather wisdom from conversations about how things work. This process has not only shaped my goals academically, but the wisdom that I have gathered from those older than me has given me a plan for how I want to live my life.
It is for these reasons that I do not believe education is a “one size fits all”; I believe that education happens everyday, all of the time. I believe as young people, we learn from not only school, but our families, our surroundings, and our elders. My grandfather taught me that education is all around us, you just have to look around and pursue it.