Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Education equips you for a working life.

“Education equips you for a working life.” I strongly believe in the statement and dare to say it would stand up to any test. Although education is different than working, it does teach us the basics and help us to acquire much needed skills. Take for example, problem-based learning. Skills learnt from this course would help us greatly in the future when we encounter a work-related problem. Education does prepare us for a working life, teaching much needed values in this fast-paced life, where sometimes values are overlooked when promotional back-stabbing occurs.

In the compulsory school years, students have to go through civics and moral education. This teaches us loyalty to the country and also other values such as commitment and dedication. These values would help greatly later on in the working life, where back-stabbing happens on a regular basis. Principles taught are much more important than any job promotion, as in the end it tells of one’s character. In the wise employer’s mind, they would always choose the hardworking and trustworthy over the charismatic charmer. Thus, education does equip us to deal with working life.

Also, in this new era where knowledge is power, students have already gone through a thorough and comprehensive education system which does prepare them as best as the system would allow. This wide variety of choices available in the education system enables one to choose his career path earlier, and gain much needed knowledge and skills into one’s self. In this pragmatic society, the older generation is cast aside for a newer generation of knowledgeable young adults, and with the idea of principles that stays in one’s self; you would then have the model employee. Thus, I strongly agree with the statement that education does equip us for a working life.

Education now is not only about head knowledge but hands- on skills as well. The government recognizes the importance of projects based on problems as found in jobs, and thus introduced problem-based learning. This in turn, gives the students a taste of working life, and prepares them for the much anticipated move to the working environment in a few years time. Education does not only teach the students subjects nor principles alone, but it is also a vast ground for networking. In most educational systems, pupils have to undertake a couple of years in school, and friendships inevitably do occur. This friendships built perhaps will not only allow strong bonds between pupils in their student life, but also help them to network in their future jobs. This is important as contacts would greatly advance one’s ability at work and with the employer.

Education as at right now is no longer just knowledge-learning alone, but is now more holistic. Physical lessons do help us remember to relax in the older years, and this will help us balance our lives in the future as stress starts happening due to work. Employees are looking for well rounded individuals, and education does aim to promote its students as that: well rounded and versatile learners. Hence I do agree with the statement that education equips us for a working life, not only knowledge but also knowing how to deal with people.

It may take some time for students to adjust from school life to work life, with the vast difference in hours and the required work that are miles apart. However with the strong foundation one has through the education system, it will not seem difficult to bounce back. I affirm the statement made that education does equip us for working life as it equips not only with knowledge but also skills. Education is powerful and much needed in modern day society. Education is compulsory to jumpstart one’s career.

Monday, April 6, 2009

School Promotes "Correctness" Over "Creativity"

There are many successful people in this world, and statistics has shown that perhaps three out of four of them only became successful through their creativeness. A few examples are well known people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or even Thomas Edison. If not for creativity, computers, Ipods or a basic light bulb would probably not have existed. In recent times, schools has started to promote "correctness" over "creativity". They feel that it is much more important to do something everyone expects so that it is most likely right rather than doing something totally different which the result could turn out to be much better. I, with this is mind, feel that creativity should be promoted over correctness.

The lack of promoting creativeness would affect the student’s education in the later years. Even though there are certain subjects such as mathematics which needs only "correctness" to do well, many other subjects need much more creativity to score well in. Take literature as an example. Without the student’s creative ideas, there is no way that he or she would be able to write a good essay or poem. The school can teach the students all the usual steps of writing a poem, even so; only with the students own creativity would he be able to succeed as an excellent writer. If the school continues to encourage the students to follow the usual procedure of learning, there would be very little chance that the students can learn to break of from the rest and excel in the subject. This would definitely affect the student’s education as they would be stuck with the rest without being able to do something totally different. Therefore, this is one of the reasons why creativity should be promoted over correctness.

Also, creativity encourages the students to have a different perspective in life. When the school promotes correctness, the students would assume that everything has to be done perfectly and in that particular order. Life would then be extremely boring as students would be doing every single thing the same. There would be no need for them to rack up their brains in order to think of something completely different from what they usually do. Is this what we want from the students when they grow up? In contrast, with creativity being taught to the students, they would be able to understand more about life and how to change the usual things to become better. For example, students could have more innovative ideas in making objects that could help the society improve. How do you think the broom was invented? If everyone would continue to clean the floor with their bare hands without thinking of a more innovative idea to quicken things up, the broom would have never been invented. Thus, with creativity, the students would be able to look at things in a different way without being bored of doing the usual stuffs.

In conclusion, based on my explanation above, I truly feel that creativity should be promoted over correctness. Life can never be able to move forward, technology would never be advanced, and there would be no Noble Prize winners without creativity. If correctness continues to be promoted over creativity, students would grow up to be unable to cope with the advancing challenges as they would not be able to think of ideas to overcome the obstacles. So, would you still want “correctness” to be promoted over the wonders of “creativity”?

Exposition

An Exposition is a type of written discourse that is used to explain, describe or inform. One important point to keep in mind for the author is to try to use words that clearly show what they are talking about rather then blatantly telling the reader what is being discussed. Since clarity requires strong organization, one of the most important mechanisms that can be used to improve our skills in exposition is to provide directions to improve the organization of the text.