Sorting Through Education :: Classrooms School Learning Essays

Sorting Through Education "The whole world’s a classroom, and to really make it one, the first thing is to believe it is." (62) This quote is from Jon Spayde’s article entitled "Learning in the Key of Life" in which he discusses education outside of the classroom. Education is a word that encompasses all new knowledge that a person receives. This includes learning to walk and talk as a child, learning to read and write, learning to make friends and how to keep them. We receive an education everyday starting the minute we wake up. Some knowledge is practical, such as cooking and working effectively with others, and other knowledge is philosophical such as complicated mathematical theorems and Protegra’s idea that "Man is the measure of all things." The question now becomes which type of knowledge is more important, practical or philosophical? My challenge to the reader is to try to see these two ideas as a weighted balance. Both sides are equally important and each enriches the other. If there is enough of both everything tends to balance nicely with each idea corresponding with another. What happens if learning and education focuses more on one then the other? The scale is then lopsided. The more extreme the tilt toward one type of education, the more extreme that life is. For example, a person who can pass any test they take with flying colors but can not use a map to find thier way around. That person is book smart but has no common sense. Let’s look at what is referred to often as "street smarts" or common sense. Street smarts are those things that are learned outside the classroom such as how to communicate with people and how to survive in the every day world. This practical knowledge is extremely important to learn. Everyday we go out we usually learn something that is useful to us as humans. For example, let us take a looks at a man known as Edward. Edward was tiling a roof as child with his father. A piece of paper flew off the roof and Edward, being a little boy, tried to jump off after it. His father stopped him and Edward learned an important lesson that day on impulsiveness. He now knows to think before acting. Other examples of learning through experience are: we learn to read through magazines and comics as seen in Mike Rose's article "Lives on the Boundry.