Education is our Most Important Asset Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Education is our Most Important Asset - Essay Example Education is the vehicle we use to promote our society and advance civilization. Education is the glue that holds humanity together and is our most important asset. A good education is more that just the bookwork and classroom learning that is often portrayed as education. A true education instills values and civility. It teaches the student the norms and mores of the society in which they live. Education gives us the tools to interact with our fellow man. This is the most basic and fundamental value of education. As Sahni reminds us, "you can have all the "book" knowledge in the world about a certain profession, but if you don't know how to behave with your co-workers and or your superiors, having "book" knowledge won't get you too far". In understanding the value of education, we need to understand that education can take place anywhere. Having learned the moral foundation for interaction, education can also promote equality and justice. According to a United Nations report titled "The Importance of Education for Women", "Civil and family education should be used to prevent young people from growing up to perpetrate violence against women. Violence was a result of miseducation in the family". Once again we see education at an early age promoting the civil society we expect. Education does not teach us what to think, but how to think. ... The goal of the college is to, "provide students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes essential to living in and contribution to an ever-changing democratic society" ("The Importance of Education"). Programs presented at universities are meant to develop a student's autonomy, competence, conscience, and creative capacity. Critical thinking allows the student to decide the validity and value of the information available. Education also forms a standard by which civilization can communicate with one another. The student in Los Angeles will understand the academic paper written in India because they have been educated. Without this formal instruction we would be living in the world of Babel. Our science would be isolated and unattainable outside closed cultures. Without standard building blocks to construct our knowledge upon, most of what we have gained as a society would soon become unintelligible. When filled with slang and misspellings a Nobel Prize project would go unrecognized. As E.D. Hirsch so basically states, "there is a body of information that literate people do know" (131). Education gives us the tools we need to communicate. Education is the glue that binds our fragmented knowledge and allows research to build and create new and innovative opportunities for a civilized future. This educational rubber meets the road in its goal of sustaining a healthy economy. Education creates economic opportunity and it takes education to benefit from it. According to Ferguson, "Today, much of that high-value output demands workers with the creativity, cognitive abilities, and skills to interact with challenging technologies". Workers must be flexible and innovative to exist in today's fast paced world of rapid change. To participate in the