Cookie Cutter Individiuals by Kaseba

Cookie Cutter Individiuals by Kaseba - April 2015 Scholarship Essay

It is well established that schools are where people go to learn. The much bigger question is not the “what” but rather the “why”. The gains education itself has to offer are valuable and extensive indeed. The problem lies in the fact that the true purpose of education is undefined. Lately it seems people have to be educated to survive in society and become a productive member as if education is just meant to chug out generic, cookie cutter workers. Despite this presentation, as someone who has spent thirteen years in a system attempting to educate me, I believe the purpose is to generate individuality.

Felix E. Schelling once stated education creates inequality in a wide range of aspects. Despite the negative connotation used, it is a very agreeable summary of education. Rather than inequality, it should be thought to create varying degrees of characteristics in students. As students learn they should be able to find their passion, specialize in it, and expand themselves accordingly. Some may be geniuses and other not as gifted; some may be talented in one way and others in another. Ralph Waldo Emerson advises, “Wait and see the new product of Nature”. Each student is a product, and each, if education is meeting expectations, is a unique blend of passion and knowledge. That is true education and the school system’s true purpose.

Unfortunately, most schools don’t fulfill their purpose. Most often, the long-term goal of education is seen as preparation for a job. Short-term goals consist of preparation for college, standardized tests, and other tests and projects. As these goals are communicated, students are losing their passion once they become adults, and others are giving up on school altogether. Those that are at the top of their class embrace the false purpose and often take classes that have little to nothing to do with their true passion to improve their GPA and make themselves look desirable to colleges. This leads them further away from individualization. It affects more than just their high school careers. In their adulthood, passion is rooted out for financial security and recognized profession. These aspects can work together, but education is not currently taught in a way to imply that. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some students drop out because education is presented as a list of dreary goals. The purpose of education becomes something dull and approached with much less enthusiasm than the true one would incite.

There is only so far schools can go for the purpose of creating passionate individuals; only so much can be taught rather than discovered. Moreover, education comes in other nontraditional forms and supplements the same purpose. Family, community, and society as a whole all take a part in defining who someone is. Baldwin, states, “The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not”. In other words, the purpose is to create a free-thinking individual, but that doesn’t happen just from school. Someone may get their education from a movie that inspired them, the morning news report, lectures from their parents, stories from their friends, and so on. As long as it factors into who they are, it educates them.

In no way does that excuse the current school system. Because of it students are losing interest as they are force fed massive amounts of simplistic information. Francine Prose states, “Education, after all, is a process intended to produce a product. So we have to ask ourselves: What sort of product is being produced by the current system?” In an answer to her own call, she says, “Less comfortable with the grey areas than with the sharply delineated black and white, he or she can work in groups and operate by consensus, and has a resultant, residual distrust for the eccentric, the idiosyncratic, the annoyingly… individual”. Reaching the ideal purpose may be impractical for schools alone, but, as Prose demonstrates, the current schools are far from it. They’re nearly accomplishing the opposite and not even fulfilling their potential. If they did, people would lead more exhilarating lives with intense dedication, and the world would be better for it. True education must produce unique people who pursue their own desires found in learning. If people are properly informed of the true purpose and led toward the discovery of themselves rather than their careers, they may have find school to be an enjoyable, fulfilling, and inspirational experience.