Learners For Life by Landon

Learners For Life by Landon - March 2018 Scholarship Essay

I believe it is important to continue our education past high school and beyond. That is why I will be attending college to go into either elementary education or physical education. The question I face is how I would explain the importance of continued learning to a second grade student. This question calls out to me because as a educator, teaching and learning will be part of my daily life if I am to be successful in that career.
The answer to this is question is different with every age group. Second graders are generally around seven to eight years old. This is when their minds are wild with ideas to what they want to be when they grow up. This can be anything from flying into space as an astronaut or performing in front of thousands of people as a ballet dancer. They dream big and believe that no matter what comes in their way, they can overcome it and achieve their dreams.
This is how I would respond to the second grader. How can their big dreams be achieved? Being able to fly a rocket or spin a perfect pirouette does not come naturally. We need to learn those skills to be able to execute them. If we do not learn, we don't grow. Without learning, we can't achieve our dreams. We need knowledge to push us closer to our dream. When we learn, we discover.
Discovery can be seen as an adventure. Every book we read is a new journey, a new discovery. We adventure further into a new land with every page we turn. We can learn about the first man to walk on the moon or the greatest ballerina our country has every produced. If we don't learn, then we wouldn't discover the stories that help us make our dreams come true.