Introduction
Education is an integral part in the life of every person. It is a daily and constant process that we have in everything that we do. It helps form the person that we are and helps shaping the way we think act and react. So what then is education and what makes it an important part of a man’s life? What are the parameters that a person must have to be considered as educated? What is the role of education for a man to be considered as more worthy human beings?
Discussion
Education has been defined as the process of educating or of being educated (www.m-w.com). It also encompasses both teaching and learning basic knowledge, the proper behavior or conduct and behavior and including some competencies. Thus the process would focus on the cultivation of skills, trades or professions and would include the development of the mental, aesthetic and moral aspect. Education however can be divided into two aspects. One is the formal education which would include a systematic way of instruction, learning and teaching. Say for example, medical student is trained, taught and supervised by professional doctors and elementary students learn their lessons in a systematic way following a course outline which is different from grade to grade. Formal instruction also has specific instructors. Say for example an elementary teacher cannot teach college because these teachers have different field of specialization. Another aspect of education is that it can be informal. This type of education would not involve a formal instruction or a course outline to be followed. Informal education may include visits to the museum where people can learn about history with no formal instruction or visits to libraries where people can read and gain knowledge through reading books. Another example would be a teenager learning how to do the household chores through her mother. Those experiences where a person learned something out of practicing one’s profession are also included just like a teacher learning how to handle kids which was not a major subject when she studied to become a teacher. This is basically what education is. Not limited to the formality for as long as you have learned something out of your experiences.
How then do we define an educated person? As education’s definition is of two aspects then we can classify educated persons in two aspects as well. In the formal aspect of education we can consider a person to be educated when he has gone into formal schooling wherein a person gained knowledge through formal training. Formal training or education would include attending classes at a school be it elementary, high school or college. We can then consider an uneducated person to be someone who has never gone into a formal institution or a school even at one point of his life. Another aspect that we can look into to consider a person to be educated or uneducated is through informal education. As informal education is defined as learning from experiences, we can consider all persons to be educated. At different level and different ways of learning, all people learned form their experiences in unique ways. It may be different from culture to culture but we can never consider a person to be uneducated in this aspect. It’s just that we learn differently.
Based on the definition of an educated and uneducated person, there is no bias. Seeing the person to be educated or uneducated would really depend on the person’s view of what education and what an educated person is. As for me, we can only consider a person to be uneducated in the formal aspect but not in the informal aspect.
Education is a broad term to define. It covers aspects that would have different implications such as when to consider a person to be educated and uneducated. Same is true if education is free to every person. In formal education, it is not free, although government has grants, parents would still shell out money from their own pockets to send their children to a formal school. Informally, education is free for all. Whether we like it or not we receive education informally everyday. Day by day we learn new things in life that help us learn.
It is formal education that plays a part in some notion that divides people into more worthy persons and less worthy persons. Other people see educated persons to be those who have good paying jobs because these are the persons they considered to be educated. How a person behaves, how a person speaks, how a person reacts, are some things that people associate with being an educated person. They have certain expectations of what an educated person is that is the reason why there is such a division of the more worthy persons and the less worthy persons. If people do not meet with the standard of the expectations of what an educated person is, then you might fall into the category of uneducated person which they would associate with being illiterate thus considered to be less worthy persons. Some people see the worth of a person depending on the level of education that he acquired. The lesser the education that the person have acquired the more that some people would see you to be less worthy.
Conclusion
Thus, education is a very integral part in our lives. It is educations that form the persons that we are. It is what helps us day to day. The skills the character and the behavior that we have, we owe it all to education.
Reference
Merriam-Webster Online. Education. 2008. Web.