Schooling vs. Education

Education and Schooling: The Mental Fork In The Road Understanding the difference between schooling and educating is important. Many people use the two terms education and schooling interchangeably. Education refers basically to the education system such as: schools, colleges, Tech centers, universities in public and private. The belief is that these institutions are creating original thinkers. The system of schooling uses discipline and motivation as a method to motivate young people to learn.

Within the School system students experience frustration when they attempt to make changes or improve because there is confusion between what is schooling and what is education. This confusion is caused because there is often overlapping and contradictory goals and objectives within each system. The term schooling is use as a way of pointing out the historical, cultural, political and social processes of transforming people into citizens and members of particular social groupings. School is meant to determine each student’s proper social role (Gatto page 157).

This is a form of domesticating people, making them “fit in” to whatever the demands of the social group into which they are born and/or live in. You don’t have to learn anything original. What you really learn in college or any other level of schooling is how to navigate the system. Though you may be exposed to many ideas, theories, and discoveries, they are only side effects if you choose to gain the knowledge. Schooling depends on there being an authority to authorize what is going to be counted as correct and worthy of some certificate or other form of reward for conforming.

Emphasis is given to learning information and repeating this information in tests that are marked according to the extent that the repetition is faithful to some original text. Schooling is about following norms of “behavior and thinking” that have been desired by authorities such as: governments, examination boards, and tradition. Memory therefore is accorded prime place under schooling. This method is commonly use but rarely noticed by the population it controls. Schooling can be compared to animal taming and boarder line brainwash.

Schooling should be deemed wrong due to its more recent historical associations with controlling, forming and fashioning the minds of behaviors of American youth. The emphasis upon the meaning of schooling is ‘leading’ the individual to engage in the teacher’s desired forms of behavior. It sounds like we are a collection of domesticated animals. Without the gift of original thought, students are given the idea that they are now an educated person, they cease to be a force of change and movement in the intellectual universe.

They are no longer a threat to the status quo, but another piece of the puzzle of our society. You will get a fine job, a credit card, and work your life to promote the thoughts, ideas, and passions of other people. This may suggest that schooling is necessary, but would you want to become another robot. Education can be described as the antithesis to schooling. Education is the process of exploring alternative ways of thinking, actions, believing, and expressing one’s self. It is the process through which one forms one’s own judgment independently and using cognitive thought processes.

Education depends on dialogue between people on an intellectual level. Education is about freedom of thought and action. It means making judgments about knowledge. Education requires Students to ask why, not just what and how. After the why is answered, it requires students to ask, “what now?! ” We all need ‘information’ as a basis for reflection. Becoming educated may seem like the opposite; however the idea of schooling comes back into play. Who you can be and what you can accomplish are not so clear cut. Scholars in political economy and the sociology of knowledge have recently argued that public schools in complex industrial societies like our own make available different types of educational experience and curriculum…[for] different social classes (Anyon page 174). This creates a disadvantage for the poorer areas. Even if you absorb all the information you could, you would still fall short to the student being educated somewhere with better resources. Many people who go to school, building up debt and spending valuable years.

It is through the educative process that creativity and spontaneity, innovation possibilities for realization and action. Education is a fundamental process for democracy as schooling is a fundamental process for non democratic forms of political organization. Anyone engaged in a process of improvements would do themselves well by understanding these distinct differences and clarifying their own goals and objectives relative to each system. The completion of school is not the completion of an education; it is simply a point of departure.

There are dangers that come when someone completes their schooling and makes the mistake of thinking they’re finished. A degree comes with it a grave responsibility to continue a quest for an education for the rest of your life. Within that phase of your life it is time to evaluate what you know and understand. The truth is…we know nothing without experiencing it ourselves. This experience, we should be striving to broaden, with enthusiasm every day. In conclusion, schooling and education are to opposing forces that work together.

You can either become a robot with no original thought of your own, or a educated individual with the of cognitive thinking. As stated before school prepares you for the system that we identify as the real world. Through the schooling process many great things are highlighted for the benefit of the student to absorb. The student must be willing to take his education as Malcolm X did when he was in prison. He didn’t have the advantages like others may have been exposed to, but her took his education.

Teachers should focus more on inspiring the students to want to absorb an education instead of just attending to be domesticated and looked after. The moral to this story is that schooling is unavoidable, but there is a great chance to take advantage of the knowledge that is available. Will you take your education by the horns or just let it push you by? Works Cited Anyon, Jean. Rereading America Cultural Context for Critical Thinking and Writing: Social Class. Bedford/St. Martin’s; 7th edition April 12, 2007 Felder, Richard. “SCHOOLING VERSUS EDUCATION AND OTHER BALANCING ACTS. Educational Research and Methods Division, June 23, 1999 http://www4. ncsu. edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/ERM_Plenary. htm Gatto, John. Rereading America Cultural Context for Critical Thinking and Writing: Against school. Bedford/St. Martin’s; 7th edition April 12, 2007 Moore, Michael. Rereading America Cultural Context for Critical Thinking and Writing: Idiot Nation. Bedford/St. Martin’s; 7th edition April 12, 2007 Rodriguez, Richard. Rereading America Cultural Context for Critical Thinking and Writing: The Achievement of Desire. Bedford/St. Martin’s; 7th edition April 12, 2007