Why tertiary education does not ensure a better future for children

http://www.helium.com/items/1434527-tertiary-or-post-secondary-education-does-not-ensure-a-better-future

Contrary to what people may believe, a tertiary education does not ensure a better future for children. The key word here is "ensure", as nothing in life is a guarantee. A tertiary education is any schooling beyond secondary, or high school. This could be a full four year college, community college, or technical and trade schools. Children are mistakenly led to believe that if you do well in school, get into college, and get your degree, that you will have nothing but success.

This is completely false and giving children this limited advice could contribute to their downfall. Although it is vital to continue your education, the quest for success does not end once you have that specialized degree.

Success comes to those who seek it, believe in it and work hard for it. Success is not handed to anyone, including those with higher education. So why then are there so many people graduating from universities, yet are still unable to find jobs, keep jobs, grow their careers and provide for themselves and their families?

Unfortunately our nation is raising generations of children who feel "entitled". Children are growing up feeling that they are owed everything in life. It begins when they are young and they feel that they deserve and should get any and all toys they want. This can be attributed to the onslaught of marketing and advertising on television. Children are constantly bombarded with visions of the next biggest and best toy. Peers continually compare who has the newest and the best and parents fall prey to this competition.

It does not end there, as children enter the teenage years it gets even worse. They believe they should get the newest electronics or the most in-fashion designer wear, or even worse a new car when they turn sixteen. Parents shower these material possessions upon their children for a variety of reasons. They may feel guilty for not being able to spend enough time with them. They may have grown up with those same expectations, and either they were denied by their own parents, so they vow to not deny their children, or they were given it all too so see nothing wrong with it.

This is not to say that giving your child gifts or providing them with modern technology is a bad thing. It is just that children need to learn the value of a hard day's work and the benefits that come with that or in contrast, the consequences that come with laziness. They need to be taught by example that life is a series of struggles and triumphs and that with each comes a valuable learning experience.

In addition to feeling entitled, children are no longer allowed to experience failure. Parents, teachers and coaches are all led to falsely believe that all children

need to feel triumph, even in circumstances when they failed. Children are sheltered so much that they grow up believing that no matter what they do and how they do it, they are successful.
This is doing them a grievous disservice that will affect them for their whole lives. Of course no one likes to feel bad, and no one wants a child to feel bad, especially if they have really tried in whatever they did. However, without feeling the disappointment of failure, they will never be able to experience and appreciate the jubilation of true success.

So shower your children with gifts, but teach them the value of hard work. Provide your children with a wide variety of opportunities, and support them through their failures and celebrate with them in their successes. Encourage your children to continue their education, for learning is really what feeds our soul. Most of all believe in your children, so they will learn to believe in themselves. These are the things that will shape our children because only they can enusre a better future for themselves.

A Good Site

http://www.helium.com/channels/9-Education

Why Formal Education is better than Homeschooling

Both homeschooling and formal education have their positive attributes, but in todays society formal education is a far better choice for children of all ages. While homeschooling has the advantage of helping a student feel comfortable and perhaps learning more in a familiar enviorment. Formal education offers the advantage of learning how to interact in the world, which is full of all sorts of social situations. For example a child begins homeschooling after starting school because they are uncomfortable with strangers. Eventually they have to go to college or get a job they would be unfamiliar with how they should act with collegues customers and fellow students.

While their education didnt suffer their social skills more than likely would. If they had continued with their formal education they would have eventually solved any problems they would have had with strangers on their own. Along with future problems like how to negotiate problems succesfully with others in a working enviorment or how to make small talk, create lasting relationships with others, dealing with peer pressure,and ultimately just being able to feel comfortable in their surroundings. Formal education offers students the chance to interact with others, developing independance and crucial social skills.

Recieving a formal education often ensures that students are exposed to a variety of situations that would otherwise be nonexistant in homeschooling. Most of them would be considerd negative in most peoples eyes. Things like drugs, pregnancy, learning disabilities, illnesses, poverty, and people from different walks of life. While these are all viewed negatively every one of them can help someone grow and learn as a person. If a students classmate became pregnant that student would witness the troubles and hardships the pregnant classmate expieriences further encouraging the student to be safe when dealing with sex using protection or even practicing abstinenense.

Many people would argue at this point what if the student has the opposite reaction and feels encouraged to have a baby of their own. I personally feel a students decision on those matters should start at home. If that students parents are actively involved in the students life showing them right from wrong they would have no reason to feel encouraged to have a child. Parents give the guidelines to a childs morals while school offers them the experience to make their own decisions, if their early teachings are well made their decisions should be to.

Homeschooling is a great way to ensure that a pupil is fully equipped with an education that covers a wide range of topics teachers feel are personally necessary to the students education, but it often lacks the formidable advantage formal education offers, fully developed social skills that are necessary in every day life.

Why Homeschooling is better than formal education

Before there was any formal education, it was the responsibility of the parents to educate their children. The education was about social manners, how to cook, clean, grow food, and protect their way of life. Besides being a book of discipline, the Bible was also a tool to help people to read. Math came naturally by bartering.

Today, I still think homeschooling is better than formal education because every child needs time to think about what is really important in life. Teaching the basics of life is what homeschooling is all about. It also gives parents time to be with their growing children and to correct them along the way. The most important years of a child's life is in the womb, crawling, walking, and when the child is able to realize that life will be good to them if they are good to it.
Most people think that homeschooling means isolation. Not so! In most States you are on a registry. You just cannot keep a child at home and do whatever you want to. There is a school curriculum that parents must follow. Let us say the child is in his or her last grade of high school, the parent is required to teach the child regular text lessons that are presented in high school. The use of the same text books may not be necessary. The child is required to take the same exams as regular students. The laws do vary from different States.

A lot of high school students are dropping out and everyone is puzzled to the reasons why. I will tell you the reasons why. These students have not been taught the basics of life. They have not been taught how to survive in their environment. They are lost and confused.

Yes, this is the informational generation but they are still human beings. They need time to think and put their thoughts together so that things can make sense. The way the school systems are setup, it want let them. The teachers have to teach certain subjects and are given a certain amount of time to teach those subjects. The students end up not learning because they have no time to consume it all.

Most students will not speak up about having difficulty in comprehending a subject. They may be embarrassed about what their friends might think of them. They may feel pressured not to express themselves. So throughout their school years they are frustrated with their feelings and find learning boring.

Homeschooling teaches a child to feel free about expressions. It teaches a child that it is alright to make mistakes and to learn from them. It teaches a child that learning is fun. It teaches a child that if they do not understand a subject the first time, do it again until it makes sense. Homeschooling is about learning the value time. It is a time where every child needs to learn how to be a child.

Is Education Really That Important

http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/just-how-important-is-education-part-2/

Is Education Really That Important?

I met a high school dropout yesterday. We talked for something like an hour and a half or two hours. It was very revealing and confirms a lot of my thoughts about education. Beware as you read this. If you’re comfortable thinking that everyone needs to go to school, get a degree, and get a safe secure job, then this article will challenge you.

She is 17 years old. She came to my door to talk with me about switching my electricity provider. I have been thinking of doing the same thing anyway, and the rates are lower than my current provider. The reason I haven’t is because my landlord’s name is on the bill and I didn’t want to bother switching over. He signed up for the program, and told me about it before she got to me. It didn’t take much salesmanship on her part, because I was already a willing buyer.

From what I could tell, she dropped out her senior year. But she’s very intelligent. We talked about money, marketing, customer service, sales, school, reading, her goals and ambitions, and her past. She does have a GED and is enrolled to attend the University of Houston in the fall to major in dance with a minor in business. But she said something that I’ve known for a while, just haven’t been able to actually see someone who understood it.

A high school diploma is just a piece of paper

Think about it. How much did you learn about teaching by sitting in a class in college? Odds are you learned more as a student teacher, and even more in the first handful of years of teaching than you ever did in any college classes. The same is true for life.

Are you saying that education is not important?

I’m not saying that at all. What I am saying is that education is only as valuable as you make it. Her vocabulary was not that of the typical high school students that I know. I used big words and she understood them. Why? Because she reads prolifically. She reads nonfiction books. I gave her a list of five books that she needs to read, and I know that she will. What did I recommend? The same stuff I’ve recommended on here:
How To Win Friends and Influence People
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
The 4-Hour Workweek
The Millionaire Next Door
The Total Money Makeover

These books have all in one way or another helped to completely transform my views on things I should be doing. Education is exceedingly important. But schooling and education are not the same thing. How many students do you know who waste their schooling and miss out on education? I now know one more person who has chosen to forgo the schooling in deference to her own education.

After my first post this morning, I realized that I actually met a few high school dropouts yesterday. One was mentioned in the previous post. On the flip side were two other young ladies I had lunch with.

These women were 22 and 29 years old. One finished 11th grade and the other was kicked out of school after assaulting a teacher and principal in 8th grade. Both of them met while living in a rehabilitation type home run by people from a local church. Admittedly, they grew up in the inner city, while the other young lady grew up in a South Texas Border Town. Environment was different from that standpoint. But demographically, they would all be listed the same with the government. Hispanic females who dropped out of school. Victims of the system, some would say.

What is the difference between these dropoutsThe primary difference that I noted was one of ambition. The first girl very clearly wants to be successful. She has a dream of being a gospel singer worth $3.6 million within five years. She wants to open a dance academy. She wants to work her way up in the company that she is currently working on, or else move on and find another venue to use her skilset. She has determination. I asked the 22 year-old to tell me three things she would like to accomplish with her life and her answer was: I’ll get back to you on that. She finally decided that she’d like to buy something nice for her children, maybe a house.

We see that another difference is setting specific goals. The younger one has very specific goals. She knows exactly what she wants. If she doesn’t reach her specific goals and ends up becoming a gospel singer worth $3.4 million, she’ll still be all right.

The primary difference I noticed is a eagerness to learn, or a having teachable spirit. These are keys to any kind of success, but they were elaborated in reality for me. It’s sad to see people who are 22 and 29 who are unemployed, have no creditable education, and seemingly have very few opportunities for advancement.

Whether people stay in school or drop out, the key ultimately is education. If you are in school and don’t want to learn, you are wasting your own time, the time of others (teachers and students), and tax money. If you are not in school and do learn, you are advancing your own skills. Ideally, and probably the easiest way through, is to finish school, but there are enough success stories that prove finishing school is not the only way to be successful.