Is Your Education Job Security?
"Did You Know 2.0"
Did you know education was never intended to be solely used for capital gains; financial reward is a bi-product of education but never was intended to be the final goal. Doctors played a practical purpose in a community to help people that were sick; lawyers were needed to settle practical arguments over property and civil rights, and their education provided a skill set that filled a void within the community serving the other citizens and assisting and sustaining the whole. A vast majority of Education in America has shifted its focus from serving the community to serving the individual's financial dreams. It seems we are no longer thinking about going to school to cure cancer or develop affordable health care for all Americans but thinking about what profession pays the highest salary; it seems we think in terms of what kind of living do I want if the pay grade of a teacher does not allow for that type of living we move on to another that does. I am the prime example of this, I started out wanting to be a minister but it did not pay enough so I rationalized that I could serve people in another public capacity, politics and law. My real motive was the pretige and salary that came with being a lawyer not to mention the house and how much more attractive I thought I would be to women with this title, lawyer. The simple lifesyle and living of a minister was not going to pay for ski trips and SUV's but the more important problem is it would not provide financial security and comfort. These things in themself are not bad but they are when they become the goal and not the bi-product. Maybe that is why China and England have surpassed America in college graduates, maybe financial progression is not enough motivation to provide the resiliency to graduate compared to a student that is solely focused on developing technology that will benefit the other communities.
Education's sole purpose of a should never be salary, a big home, four kids and 2.3 dogs whole people in our community, nation and world have needs that are not being met. It should be the impetus of all college students that have the ability, resources and opportunity to get an education to use it to tackle and conquer a problem facing humanity. A survey was done in a sixth grade class in South Africa asking students what they would do if they had the opportunity to get an education, read their answers and compare them with your educational goals.
If you haven't got the picture yet then check out this video from a college professor expostulating about what education is and what education is for.
http://richrice.com/4360/wong.mov
Well, what do you think? Is your job going to be a necessity in ten years or will it be non-existent? What do you think about education, does this make you consider what the goal of your education should be. Think about it, you could conquer world hunger, find a way to educate even the slowest mentally handicap students, develop a way to provide clean water in countries that have none, cure cancer, cure AIDS, develop better pedagogical techniques that will prepare our future students to lead our nation... The options are limitless, the possibilities are growing along with the problems that we will face as a nation, a world and as a human-race in the future.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Why does a six-year old want to be a lawyer?
Malcolm Gladwell...
I really enjoyed Malcolm's creative avenue for encouraging diversity and linking it to happiness, I think there is a lot to take away from his discourse besides how to have/manufacture an utopian world. I would say that is implausible or cliche but that would be an unjust quick packaged summarization of Malcolm.
What I did take away from Malcolm Gladewell is: that people don't know what they want and they can't explain what they want, make them reach out for something higher and better, as a science people are still trying to explain or discover the universal ways humans behave and the key to business is understanding human variability.
Applying these to anything in life in the 21st century could help you be successful especially in America but what I find disturbing about this discourse is, America is just fine. We have food, shelter, hopitals, clean water etc.. the necesseties for a people group to survive and extremely understated, survive well. Where I fault America is why are we continually trying to make better technology, spending billions of dollars on faster internet and cable "the big switch", spending billions of dollars helping out mortgage companies that broke their own policies "don't lend to high risk individuals" and making education astronomically expensive for the common American, all the while the rest of the world is in cataclysmic dissarray. If Malcolm wants to talk Utopia, lets look at Uganda what is utopia for them. Clean water, shelter, food and clothing AIDS vaccination or prevntion that is utopia to them, that is embracing diversity or adversity.
If Amercia wants to once again be the greatest country on this planet lets focus our education on helping other helpless people groups, not democratic wars but clean water to all humans. It seems impossible as long as our most brilliant minds are developing the next i-phone and smaller computer or cars that drive themselves with automatic warmers in the head rest.
How about education? Where are we in that deal. The cost of education is consistently going up, lets take a lesson from our Asian counterparts who graduate more college graduates than we in America do and find out how the so many poor families still manage to graduate their children from college.
America used to be the leader in all of these areas, aid to impoverished countries, education, etc..
It seems there is no time for helping others as we climb our ladders which seems to be the goal in America and of our education.
Last week I was told that a first grade class was given the age old American assignment to draw what they want to be when they grow up, kids were drawing lawyers and doctors, why does a six year old want to be a lawyer?
I really enjoyed Malcolm's creative avenue for encouraging diversity and linking it to happiness, I think there is a lot to take away from his discourse besides how to have/manufacture an utopian world. I would say that is implausible or cliche but that would be an unjust quick packaged summarization of Malcolm.
What I did take away from Malcolm Gladewell is: that people don't know what they want and they can't explain what they want, make them reach out for something higher and better, as a science people are still trying to explain or discover the universal ways humans behave and the key to business is understanding human variability.
Applying these to anything in life in the 21st century could help you be successful especially in America but what I find disturbing about this discourse is, America is just fine. We have food, shelter, hopitals, clean water etc.. the necesseties for a people group to survive and extremely understated, survive well. Where I fault America is why are we continually trying to make better technology, spending billions of dollars on faster internet and cable "the big switch", spending billions of dollars helping out mortgage companies that broke their own policies "don't lend to high risk individuals" and making education astronomically expensive for the common American, all the while the rest of the world is in cataclysmic dissarray. If Malcolm wants to talk Utopia, lets look at Uganda what is utopia for them. Clean water, shelter, food and clothing AIDS vaccination or prevntion that is utopia to them, that is embracing diversity or adversity.
If Amercia wants to once again be the greatest country on this planet lets focus our education on helping other helpless people groups, not democratic wars but clean water to all humans. It seems impossible as long as our most brilliant minds are developing the next i-phone and smaller computer or cars that drive themselves with automatic warmers in the head rest.
How about education? Where are we in that deal. The cost of education is consistently going up, lets take a lesson from our Asian counterparts who graduate more college graduates than we in America do and find out how the so many poor families still manage to graduate their children from college.
America used to be the leader in all of these areas, aid to impoverished countries, education, etc..
It seems there is no time for helping others as we climb our ladders which seems to be the goal in America and of our education.
Last week I was told that a first grade class was given the age old American assignment to draw what they want to be when they grow up, kids were drawing lawyers and doctors, why does a six year old want to be a lawyer?
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
November 5, 208
What shift has happened in my education?
My education started off like the typical affluent American youth, get a degree and get a job but it has changed. The first shift that I noticed was in my multicultural class, African-American History post 1865. In this class I began to understand why there are racial barriers in American and the real story about slavery, civil rights and colonization in Africa. This lead me to wonder what education is like in communities primarily inhabited by African-Americans and the lack of education is the same but the quality seems a little suspect.
The other major shift in my education came at a base root level of gratefulness in context of understanding theories, and concepts related to my faith. I was so thankful for the simple task of reading and writing and could not imagine what it would be like not to hear about the grace of God given to humanity through his son. The times I read and am affected by these things make me so grateful for my opportunity to be educated.
The shift is this: I now want to use my education to enhance the lives of others, be it teaching or some other mode but I certainly value my education too much to keep it for myself and just use it solely for financial purposes.
I have been able to use my education to start a non-profit and am in the process of starting my second one.
Reading and writing,
Justin
What shift has happened in my education?
My education started off like the typical affluent American youth, get a degree and get a job but it has changed. The first shift that I noticed was in my multicultural class, African-American History post 1865. In this class I began to understand why there are racial barriers in American and the real story about slavery, civil rights and colonization in Africa. This lead me to wonder what education is like in communities primarily inhabited by African-Americans and the lack of education is the same but the quality seems a little suspect.
The other major shift in my education came at a base root level of gratefulness in context of understanding theories, and concepts related to my faith. I was so thankful for the simple task of reading and writing and could not imagine what it would be like not to hear about the grace of God given to humanity through his son. The times I read and am affected by these things make me so grateful for my opportunity to be educated.
The shift is this: I now want to use my education to enhance the lives of others, be it teaching or some other mode but I certainly value my education too much to keep it for myself and just use it solely for financial purposes.
I have been able to use my education to start a non-profit and am in the process of starting my second one.
Reading and writing,
Justin
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