Free Custom «What it Means to Be Educated» Essay Paper

What is Education and what does it mean to be educated? This is a question asked and in this paper, an analysis of the knowledge levels will be highlighted. Education, however, does not apply to students alone. Education is a continuous process applies to all the citizens of a country and every new thing that they learn impacts on their knowledge base. Students though are the most affected by teaching methods in their classes. For example, as James W Loewen points out, high school students detest history. History nearly always comes last in their list of their favourite subjects. They consider it an irrelevant subject, inapplicable in today’s life and thus they do not give it all the attention it deserves. They consider it a boring subject (Loewen 31). On the contrary, they just focus on cramming the facts for that particular class and thereafter forget all of it. Teachers of history too are affected by this phenomenon. When they discover that the students are not paying the least attention to the history classes, they do not bother to go further to try and make it more interesting. Rather they focus on giving the students what they require for their exams and that is it! The low morale in the students does not encourage them to go any further than that.

 

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Take for example the historical Civil War of the Americas, not many students and citizens alike give much thought to what really happened. The long stories involved do not really encourage them to read on. You will however find that the way this topic is taught in the North America as compared to the South America is very different. The Civil War between the American States split it in two. After the end of the war, slavery came to an end (Williams 74), but on the contrary, racial discrimination became more pronounced. The South America was economically destroyed by the war pretty badly, and to date many states have not completely recovered. But the views of the Northerners and the Southerners differ in that they are taught to blame the other for the causing of the Civil War that broke out (Seabrook 45). Therefore, these students and citizens will view the inhabitants of the other end with a very low level of respect and may also lead to prejudice. Probably that is why racial discrimination still persists today due to the information that some are having of the others.

Therefore, teachers play a significant role in the impartation of education to students who end up to become citizens and history therefore can be deemed as the basis of a nation. When you know from where you have come from, then you will know where you are going to (African quote).