Let me begin this post by giving you all a quick summary of my feelings on this subject:
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| I love to learn! |
That was seriously me through my entire educational career. I love learning. I was that student that:
*Always sat in the front row
*Had complex and detailed notes for every class
*Often read ahead in our textbooks (especially English)
*Ruined most of the grading curves by getting a %100 on the test.
Basically, I was an overachiever.
But I truly feel that education is extremely important. Yeah, when we're actually in school it seems boring and pointless, but school teaches us the things we need to know once we're out in the world, on our own. Even if what we were learning seemed like something I would never use again *COUGH*imaginary numbers*COUGH, it was still interesting.
We can never know just what our minds are capable of unless we test them, give them things to study and analyze through the subjects we are taught in school.
School also helps to teach us about ourselves as people and how we choose to interact with those around us. There is a reason that middle school is usually considered one of the most stressful times in our lives. We are all on the brink of being teenagers, full of emotions and just starting to figure out who we want to be. We learn to make friends, lose friends, succeed and fail. We all have our fair share of embarrassing moments, as well (don't worry, you'll learn to laugh about it later, I promise).
I am also a very strong supporter of the arts and music programs in schools. My dad told me the other day that my old high school is seriously considering cutting most of the music classes that they used to offer, while adding to the sports and athletics programs at the school.
*I will try VERY HARD not to go on a full scale rant regarding this subject*
Music and the arts stimulate a side of the brain and of our personalities that nothing else can. I don't know of anyone in the world who doesn't like some type of music, and the arts have been with us since before we can remember. I've read in various places that learning to play a musical instrument or to read music stimulates the brain enormously, because of all of the different parts of the mind and body that are involved with music.
How else will the imagination be stimulated? Imagination is one of the greatest gifts that mankind has been given, but without an outlet for it, such as music or the arts, it shrivels and the magic of our imagination is stifled. Not everyone is an athlete, not everyone has a place out on the courts or in a laboratory. Music touches people, in ways that we can't explain. It's powerful and it's inside all of us. It's extremely unfair to deny the exploration of the arts and music to future generations.
*Rant is over*
My favorite classes (besides my acting/theatre/music classes) were the English classes. I love reading, traveling into different worlds and times through the simple act of telling of a story. Not just any stories, either, stories that have been around for hundreds of years, stories that were read in different time periods, different lives, still touching people like they do today. I love it.
It kills me when I look out on what the world has become and see what has become of our language, particularly. In Shakespeare's day words were truly a thing of beauty. Sentences would be extremely long, descriptions would paint a picture in the air and people excelled in expressing themselves beautifully. Today, our sentences are extremely short, full of words that have been abbreviated and shortened to "save time". So many people I meet don't know how to use proper grammar and can't hear the errors they make when they speak or write.
To sum up: Learning is wonderful.
Education is very important, especially today, teaching us how to grow, discover, and dream. Knowledge is a gift, and we must make every effort to share that gift with others.
Go forth, and learn.
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