Is a university education for everyone?
An English instructor at an adult education college addresses the issue of whether "the idea that a university education is for everyone is a destructive myth."
America, ever-idealistic, seems wary of the vocational-education track. We are not comfortable limiting anyone’s options. Telling someone that college is not for him seems harsh and classist and British, as though we were sentencing him to a life in the coal mines. I sympathize with this stance; I subscribe to the American ideal. Unfortunately, it is with me and my red pen that that ideal crashes and burns.
I have a copy of Deschooling Society on my shelf that I've been meaning to read for years now.
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The issue isn't that a college level education isn't for everyone, it's obviously not. The issue is that we should be looking to create a system of better lower schools, better societal valuation of education and better internal family encouragement of education that creates an environment where a college level education WOULD be beneficial to everyone. People aren't inherently incapable of going to college, they just haven't been properly prepared for it.
While acknowledging reality is, of course, proper, we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot in the long run if we gave up on the idea that everybody should be educated to the highest degree possible. Giving up on that would leave us without the knowledge base that future economies/societies are going to need. Sure, we'd have a generation of great mechanics, but after that we'd be left behind.
I'd rather see a future where we have to import mechanics than a future where we have to import scientists... because the scientists aren't going to come.
Regardless of whether college IS for everyone, it's hard to make a good living without it. So it's hard to argue with the school districts that encourage everyone to go.
We have a present where we import mechanics.
We also import scientists.
I agree with RumorsDaily entirely. Well said.
I agree with Rumors Daily too. The ideal has got to be there that everyone should be educated to their highest potential. I do think for most people that's college, however I think college can stifle some people who have other highly valuable trades/skills to share that also need to be valued. I think societies where they do have a complete tracking system, like from middle school on (Europe and the developing world where it's for economic reasons of drastically different scales) creates a society which only values the elite/intelligentsia. There is some research to suggest that while these societies (and it's reflected in their popular talk shows, the names of philosophers they throw around the dinner table, and the way that they treat you when you say you're a "schoolteacher" which is such a venerable profession demonstrating education in some places) think most highly of the intellectuals, Americans think most highly of the person who makes the most money (which could invariably be the plumber, mechanic, Wall Street etc.). Which shows a lot about support for the arts and free thinking in some of these countries. It's interesting...