Searching For a Balance in Education :: Learning Education Essays

Searching For a Balance in Education The definition of education encompasses many different meanings. It can be delineate as schooling, studies, learning, the educational system, and the list continues on. Both Adrienne Rich and Jon Spayde feel that education is composed all of these elements. But learning at a school, inside of a classroom is only the beginning. There is much more to learn otherwise than what is inside of a text book. Learning, in large part, will come from experiencing the happiness, horrors, tragedies, and other lessons that life will bring us. We will not be able to truly appreciate our gift of knowledge until we learn to look within ourselves and to don the self- awareness we need to recognize the meaning and importance of education. Spayde and Rich feel that a school education alone does not prepare us for the existing gentleman. Both Spayde and Rich give accounts of what they have experienced inside the educational arena. (66) Jon Spayde, author of Learni ng in the Key of Life,s ntless experiences of many writers to illustrate the respective(a) types of education that exist in todays society. He and his colleagues dont necessarily believe that a formal education is the only path to learn, but instead there are various avenues for acquiring knowledge. The whole world is a classroom, and to really make it one, the first thing is to believe it is. (62) In Spaydes essay, Elizabeth Sutton- Lawrence discusses Greek education, known as in-the-street education,where the Greeks learned largely in part from first-hand experience. Socrates met and challenged his pupilsin the streets, at dinner parties, and after festivals.(us) Even if universities had been established in Greek times, Socrates, most likely would still have chosen to educate himself in the streets. He probably would have chuckled at the idea of formal schooling. (62) match to Spayde, not only did the Greeks believe in self-education, but so did other classical philosophers. Th ey believed that to enliven the mind You need to be very alert to the world around you.(63) Awareness is so critical to our learning experience. Well never appreciate the beauty that life brings us if we dont sit back and formulate on the experiences that weve learned from. New York bop and rock writer Gene Santoro expressed that we can also learn a lot from popular culture. Jazz, for example, is the artistic version of the American experience.