Definition of Education

Education is defined as acquiring skills. There are many different ways to be educated and many subjects that can be studied. School is not the only place or setting in which we can learn or get educated. We usually receive information by seeing, touching, and hearing, but it¡¦s useless unless we think about it. Otto Friedrich states ¡§Education teaches how to think¡¨. Thinking is a process to filter the information that we receive through our senses and put this information in order. A well-educated person should be able to think, to organize information, to have own thought, and to respond individually; therefore an educated person could educate himself or herself by receiving information. However, education is described as transmitting information and thinking. But, education can¡¦t be complete with only information¡¦s transmittal and without the freedom of thinking. In our society, people who are well educated are those who graduated from a good school with good grades. In my own opinion, a person who has the ability to get good grades from a good school does not equal to a well-educated person. A person who gets good grade has the ability to receive information and fill out the same information on exams as answers, which just accomplished the information¡¦s transmittal. Therefore, a student who gets good grades only indicates that student had done well in one part of education, which is the transmitter of information. A person can¡¦t be a well-educated person just because he or she has the talent to get good grades, that¡¦s because a good education can¡¦t be accomplished without the process of thinking. There is a belief in Asia and many other places in the world, the belief is about ¡§a good grade can get you into a good school, a good school can get you a good job, and a good job equals to a good life.¡¨ Again, a good grade or a good school only tells that person had done a good job on information transmittal. Unfortunately, it is a fact that society made us to believe that a person who graduated from a good school has more opportunities than a person who hasn¡¦t graduated from a good or famous school. But, in reality, the first step to have a good life is to keep good amount of income. In order to keep good income is to keep the ¡§good job¡¨, and in order to keep the job is to learn not just to be an information transmitter. Many jobs require ¡§creative mind¡¨ to achieve the gold. Creative mind made by personal experience, which is what real education is about. A well-educated person will try to understand the information they receive, analyze the understood information, and then learn from the processed information. The process of information¡¦s transmittal makes well-educated people think, and the process of thinking make them learn and gain personal experience. The media, such as newspapers or TV commercials, usually mislead the masses by gives out wrong information. Those people who are easily mislead by media is the person who think they already finished education but in fact they have only done the information transmitter part of education. Our school, our educator, our parents, and our society make us believe that we only need be a good information transmitter to get a good grade. But, we all forgot the major portion of education is to think. Well-educated people who have the ability to think will not be mislead by the media, because they will try to understand the information which given by media and analyze the information. Well-educated people have their own thought; they won¡¦t follow the media or be misleading by the media. After all the masses had misled by the media, those well-educated people will stand out and be against the media, and tell the masses the real truth. A good educational system is one that teaches a person to think. There are many arguments over what we should study and how we should be taught. ¡§The educated person is a person who has a respect for rationality, and who understands some of the limits of rationality as well, who has acquired independent critical intelligence, and a sense not only for the complexity of the world and different point of view but of the standards he or she would thought fully want to be pursuing in making judgment¡¨, University of Chicago President Hanna Holton Garry said in ¡§Five way to wisdom.¡¨ (Borzoi pg199) There is no right or wrong way to teach or certain subjects that need to be studied. Today, although our society believes that good grade equals to good life, but as long as the people are taught to think for themselves and have the desire to learn, they will be able to obtain a good education.