Character Education and Education

¶ … Education

My feelings about education are based on my own experiences. They are impacted by variables such as cost, subject matter, outcome, and expectations. The first factor -- cost -- is one that is considerably significant, as the price of attaining a higher education in today's day and age is substantial and will put many young persons into debt for the rest of their lives if they fail to "make good" on their degree and find a good paying job. This factor feeds into the other factors of outcome and expectation, as the outcome of one's education should say something about the worth, value, significance or meaning of education. Moreover, the expectations that one has about one's education can offer a sense of what education is all about. The subject matter -- the thing being studied -- is the final variable: it can range from business to literature to science, etc. -- but, of course, one must also take many other subject courses in order to graduate (which again impacts the cost of education). For me, education is not described best by any one of these variables or even by their totality. As Graff points out, there are many types of education -- and there are different types of intelligence: the "street smarts" and the "academic intelligence" of the university sphere (957). Other researchers note that there is also the kind of intelligence or education that informs the character -- character education, which is based on the instruction of students regarding principles, values, and how one should approach the act of living, also called "moral education" (Kristjansson 48). Considering all of these ideas about education, it is difficult to define the subject simply. Instead I believe there are different types of education that help people achieve different ends.

The academic education and the street education that Graff speaks of are both two different types of education. The former is concerned with those variables indicated at the start of this paper. The latter is concerned less with them than with other factors, such as "playing the game," or "getting ahead," or sizing up a situation and knowing how to act. It is typically an education that is obtained through experience. The former can help one to enter a number of different professional spheres -- but so too can the latter (as there really is no substitute for experience). Thus, I could not say that one is better than the other. Nor would I recommend one over the other. There is risk involved with each, and the desired ends of one or the other may not materialize and one may suffer social, economic and even political hardship as a result. One must weigh the pros and cons of both before deciding which is in his or her best interest -- i.e., pay for higher education or seek an education via the "school of hard knocks" so to speak.