Week 5: Essay - Knowledge is Power

In the author's note for my story this week, I included a disclaimer noting that my story was not meant to be a social commentary or a criticism of the education system. While this is true, writing that story did lead me to begin thinking about the education is viewed in today's society. It has become apparent to me that educations is often viewed as a means to an end rather than an end in a of itself. What I mean by this is that we, as a society, do not learn for the sake of knowledge, but in order to get ahead. This is not to say that exceptions to my theory do not exist - they do exist and are numerous - however these people are just that, the exception, and the rule remains. The perception of education as a means to an end is detrimental for a number of reasons the main of which is that it trivializes the acquisition of knowledge.

In my story, I presented a rather dramatized scenario in which a teacher encounters a student that wishes to take initiative in his own education. I do not believe that all or even most teachers would respond so negatively to a student who showed such a keen interest in gaining knowledge - quite the opposite, fact. I believe that many teachers would be more than willing to facilitate the in depth study of particular subjects that interest students (though there are some who would not). The problem is that, with things like standardized tests, teachers are required to follow a rigid teaching plan that hits all of the points deemed important by the makers of these standardized tests. What the preparation for these tests teaches us, and from an early age, is that if you are not directly tested over a subject, knowledge of said subject is unimportant. I can't tell you how many times a I have heard a classmate ask a teacher during a lecture will this be on the exam? You can physically see the student's eyes glaze over and his mind begin to wander if the teacher dares to reply no. I won't deny that there are times that I won't even glance at a section in a book if a professor happens to let it slip that the content in that particular section will not appear on the test. Why should I waste my time? I think to myself. The real question I should be asking myself is why I would ever view learning of any sort as a waste of time.

My mother always complains that her high school education left her ill-prepared for college. She never learned how to study, she says, and when she did study, it was the night before the exam and she forgot everything she'd studied immediately after taking the exam. This is true for so many students, myself included. I can't tell you half the things I learned in my high school AP government class despite the fact that I passed the class with an A and scored well on the AP exam. This is a huge problem - not only are we qualifying the significance of knowledge based on whether or not it appears in the context of a test, but we aren't even remembering what we did learn. In essence we are merely regurgitating what we are told is important in exchange for a letter or score that we hope will help us succeed in life. I am not condemning the desire for academic success or the will to achieve - I too strive for good grades and high test scores - I am merely questioning what education might look like if approached from a different angle, from an angle that places knowledge itself above the quantification of said knowledge.

I don't have any studies or statistics to prove that education as an ends to a mean is detrimental to education itself. I can only speak from my own experience. In retrospect, I've had access to a plethora of fascinating subjects in my years in the education system, However, there is much of it that I was not able to appreciate because I was so concerned with discerning which information would benefit me most to study so that I could do well in the class. This, to me, is the saddest result of the perception of education as a means to an end - that we are constantly surrounded by knowledge, and the opportunity to absorb so much of it, but instead we focus our energy on weeding out the useless "fluff" in favor of the information we "need to know." Why not seek to know and understand everything rather than limit ourselves to what someone else has deemed as important? When we open ourselves up to the idea that all knowledge is worthwhile, then I believe we could begin to really explore just what all the mind can do.

"Knowledge is Power!" - School House Rock (image source Wikipedia-School House Rock)