What is Education

Jordan Stiefel
Grammar For College
Education Essay
April 20, 2008

When you mention the word education most people think of the words teacher, homework, lectures, tests, and so forth. What really is education? Education can’t be summed up inside of a book. If you can sum up education in a book then does that mean you can sum up life in a book? Education isn’t just about school, it can happen everyday outside of school just by taking a chance and learning from it.

Sometimes in life things don’t always go the way you plan or want. Just like the summer before your Junior year when you are forced to move 2 hours away from the place you have lived all your life. I know sometimes it seems that putting your tail between your legs is the easiest solution. Or else there is always another chance for you to better yourself. Every new opportunity is a learning opportunity, if you decide to open up and look forward to what's a head of you. I looked at this new opportunity as a chance to walk into a new place where I could be anyone I wanted because no one knew me. Doing that taught me that when you forget about caring what people think, or caring about anyone who chooses to judge you. This is a perfect example of how education is not just school work. Whenever you come out of any situation and you learn from it, that is education.

The simplest thing like a movie can educate your mind and change your perspective. In the movie “The Dead Poets Society” a young group of boys faces a teacher who challenges them with all their weaknesses. One of the young boys Todd Anderson was the one boy who did not talk and did not want to participate. One day the poetry teacher Mr. Keating assigned the boys to write a poem. Todd was next to present his poem but had not done the homework. Instead of allowing Todd not to do the work Mr. Keating brought him to the front of the class and helped him write his poem with his eyes closed. This opened up a whole new world for Todd. This scene showed taught me that when you don't believe you can do something you in fact maybe able to do it better then anyone, with a small push in the right direction. Sometimes all it takes is a 5 minute long scene in a movie to change your view about things you don't believe you can do or your greatest weaknesses. The best way to make a weakness a strength is to try.

In the Essay “A Homemade Education” a young student has a hard time expressing himself in his letters. He knew that the only way to fix this problem was to try and fix it. He started by writing down everything on the first page of a dictionary, waking up the next day thinking about all those words and things he learned. Excitement rose over him so he kept on writing the pages of the dictionary and he learned all of these new words and history that he never knew. You can learn anything you want from a book or you can use life as your book of education. In the Essay “Two Ways of Seeing the River” Mark Twain writes about how life is a book created by man. Life is a book that can never be avoided, and someone can never come along and skip the page. The book of life can never be forgotten or lost. This essay looks at the things life brings us like the water, grass, trees, and sunsets as the most important part of the book. A book isn’t just a book, a sunset isn’t just a sunset. There is always something more to every book every page in life and everyday we educate ourselves by learning the facts of life.

Education isn’t always about going to class everyday to learn. Education is about learning something new about life and about yourself. How can you learn if you don't take a chance and try. Ask yourself this question and maybe you can open your mind to make a mistake and learn. No matter how much school you pursue or how smart you are, there is always more room to learn and make mistakes.

Work Cited

Dead Poets Society. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Robin Williams. DVD. Touchstone Pictures, 1989.

Malcolm X, and Alex Haley. How I Discovered Words: a Homemade Education.Twain, Mark.

Two Ways of Seeing the River.