“The Importance of Education to Me” – When I first read the topic, my first answer was “Yes, education is definitely important to every one of us”, but when I lay in bed at night, a question came to my mind – “Is education really important in our life?”. Therefore, in this article, we are not going to talk directly about the importance of education, but discuss what education can bring to us.
What is education? According to Wikipedia, education is the transmission of knowledge, skills, and character traits, while Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries defines education as the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.
The two definitions are different in their interpretations, but both highlighted a question for me, which is “Through education, what can we get and give?”
When I was sitting on a sofa and thinking about how to start my article in front of the television during the typhoon, I heard something that impressed me deeply……a female teacher talked about what she wants students to gain from learning. She said: “I hope that my students can find their own value in learning”.
It is precisely because of this sentence that I realised that education is not just a process of receiving subject knowledge from teachers, but through which we explore and amplify our own strengths and values.
Rolling back to the beginning of my article, I said that education is deeply important to every one of us, and that is why learning is an indispensable part of our life. But is it true? I cannot tell you the answer, but I would like to tell you my story on the road to learning.
When I was in primary school, my grades consistently ranked second in the class, because of which I studied harder than before in a tutorial centre, all because I wanted praise from families, teachers and classmates. However, those praises were lost when I switched to a new school for high school education. At that time, I used to read books constantly and pay more attention to teachers in class, but all efforts failed to receive praise, indeed I was told by a teacher to quit the school (which I did not).
I hated the teacher who asked me to transfer to another school until university. Although the teacher’s words are still deeply imprinted in my mind, I no longer hate her but I am grateful to her. Sometimes I think maybe if she had not told me to quit, I might not have thought she was looking down on me and might not have continued to study in that school until graduation.
Thanks to the little episode that appeared during my school years, I noticed that in school, students not only receive education on languages, literature, mathematics and science, among other subjects, which “may” not be necessarily needed in our life, but like the teacher said on the television, students should develop their strength and value through education.
Whether education is essential to me? My answer is: “Yes”. The definition of education to me is not only limited to the typical subjects taught in school, but the changes in my life. Through education, I learnt not to give up easily. Because of education, I learnt to cope with difficulties by myself, instead of depending on others.
Maybe some of you may think that many celebrities are quite uneducated but are very successful in their careers and development. However, while those successful people did not receive a solid school education, they might have suffered a lot of failures, struggles and setbacks in civil society, all of which, in the end, turned out to be part of their informal education.
So, is education important to you?
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