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Philosophy of Education

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Education is, in its fundamentals, the preparation of the individual child for freedom and self-sufficiency. One should first understand how to survive and manage on one’s own and then how to get a living. Awareness of, and adjustment to, the ways of others should take a late and subsidiary role in this preparation.

Any developed and democratic country should care about its nation and aim to produce healthy and educated people. Therefore, the importance of education for all levels of the population is evident. For the majority of people education is an essential part of their life. It is an important stage that is often associated with the guarantee of future career and well being. Having got proper education people are able to find their level in the society. However, the role of education in our life is far more global. While the purpose of education is very often to get the knowledge in a particular field in order to obtain a well-paid job, the function of education as of the force which favors our development and personal growth is sometimes ignored. Still, it is this function of education that should be realized by people and instilled in children. From its very first stage education is not aimed only at the acquiring of particular knowledge but also at the development of logic, thought, the ability of facts analysis and making conclusions. These capacities develop from year to year as children grow and continue to learn different subjects, to investigate new topics and to think over various dilemmas and questions. Thus, children become prepared to the future adult life, where they will have to make different decisions and to be responsible for them.

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Education develops critical thinking and when we think critically, we are able to react adequately and wisely on different situations in life, gathering necessary information, sorting through the most important facts, and making logical conclusions about our possible behavior in this or that life situation. Critical thinking relates to higher-order thinking, which is useful when we try to comprehend and to act reasonably, solving some complicated and intricate dilemmas in our life. We usually meet most of them at work and at studies. Deciding whether a crime was committed or not and finding the offender, estimating the process of development of global warming and its impact on the world, arguing about the state of economy in country nowadays, people use critical thinking. Living in a democratic country, we should think critically when we make decisions that are important for the whole country, such as president elections or participation in national referendum. Thus, we see that critical thinking makes a person an influential participant of society’s life, whose decisions play an important role and it is education that develops this ability in people. At the same time, students have the best opportunity to apply their critical thinking while studying.

When we learn something very seldom we think how we learn, while it is as significant as the learnt information itself. The process of learning should be systematized and clearly understood by a person, who needs not only to memorize the content of hundreds of books, but to get the fundamental ideas and to make the right conclusions. Students often face great quantities of material needed to be learnt. When they know how to work with this material and how to process the information, learning becomes easier for them. This process can be compared to a working with a machine – if you know how to handle it, the work goes much faster and much more efficiently. Critical thinking is rather rarely taught in schools or colleges while it is the basis of education. Without it students are not able to learn the information so, that they could make use of it in future. Much depends on teachers who teach us and who should be able to present the process of learning in a proper way. Grace E. Grant (1988) states, to teach students to use higher order thinking processes-those processes that require the manipulation of information rather than the reproduction of knowledge–requires more than the refinement of discrete, generic teaching skills. Students must think about something. Teaching critical thinking is, therefore, based upon a teacher’s broad and deep understanding of subject matter and a representation of that understanding in multiple forms as work activities for students. (netent live dealer casino) Thus, it is obvious that education plays a very significant part in the development of people, their mentality and their identity. Leaving the school and entering a college, students advance to the next level, at which they should decide what profession they would like to choose. College education is certainly a step to the making of a future career. If earlier, about forty years ago, for young people high school education was enough to get a decent job, nowadays with the rapid progress of modern economy and increasing competition among young specialists, the level of knowledge acquired in a high school becomes insufficient. Education becomes a springboard for your future work and aspirations.

Studying in college, communicating with successful people, who have already achieved their aims and who are deeply interested in their activity, you also aspire to discover something new, to make your own contribution into the science, to learn more and more. Thus, education in college makes you more mature and more interested in what you are doing. It might be just an intermediate stage in your life-long learning, which will help you better understand your abilities and aspirations in a chosen sphere of life. It is necessary to pay attention to the role of having a job for a person. In the context of modern globalization and the development of all spheres of life the necessity of continuous learning and self-perfection is obvious. Experienced people and good specialists are needed everywhere. Today managers, who recruit the staff, give preference to employees with high level of knowledge. Therefore, in order to withstand the competition, you should be a real professional in your field. A person who is working and is able to get a living feels confident and free. Today all of us depend on different conditions. Those people who are more or less sure of their future feel their feet and can make progress. They have already achieved certain goals and they what they can aspire to. They might have their own aims and tasks; they can succeed in making a career because they know how to learn and how to achieve the set goals. All that they got while studying. Thus, we see that education gives us the most important ability in our life – the ability to be learnt and the knowledge how to learn and how to master new professions.

A large number of opportunities, a wider circle of people that can help you to become a professional, a new stage in your life – everything is given by education. Being acquired at the age when self-determination is of great importance in the life of young people, college education plays an essential role in the establishment of their successful future. A well-educated person is an established personality. This person knows how to achieve goals and what it takes to achieve them. In my perspective, it is significant for America as for a developed country to care about the level of education of the nation. In his article for New York Times, David Brooks claims that between 1975 and 1990, educational attainments stagnated completely. This threatens the country’s long-term prospects. It also widens the gap between rich and poor. The pace of technological change has been surprisingly steady. In periods when educational progress outpaces this change, inequality narrows. The market is flooded with skilled workers, so their wages rise modestly. In periods, like the current one, when educational progress lags behind technological change, inequality widens. The relatively few skilled workers command higher prices, while the many unskilled ones have little bargaining power. To make a conclusion, we may state, that education for a contemporary person is of great importance. Not only does it help people to become full-fledged citizens of a highly-developed country but also to enrich their inner world, to gain experience both in their studies and in relations with other people. It is erroneous to consider that education, for example in a college, gives us only some special skills for our future career. It makes us broaden our outlook and increase our knowledge.


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