Is Education Really That Important

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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.