Serving The Purpose Of Education

Education has been a topic of controversy for many years now, and will continue to be for years to come. The modern American society is best defined by its education. A good part of the average person’s life is spent at school, going to school, and paying for school. However, even though education is so obviously very important, there are many groups in America that are getting shorted. The Native Americans are a key group that has struggled the most. The largest obstacle they face is lack of proper education. The standard educational practices being used for the instruction of Native American peoples are not effective. There are many pieces to this road-block, and many solutions. This can be rectified by having more culturally

“There’s a distinction between an education and school. Education is what Native people have been doing for their children since the beginning of time. School has been what has been imposed on people from outside” (Garland). This thought from Garland’s article “In remote Alaskan villages, teachers struggle to make school meaningful,” eloquently lays out how many Alaska natives regard the operation of collecting knowledge. Remarkably, Garland’s notion also offers great insight as to why the U.S. education system seems to fail Alaska natives altogether. It is this “distinction” (Garland), between education and school that seems to actively disconnect the ancestral cultural values of Alaska natives from the mainstream education system in this country. An impression of this broken connection appears in Kleinfeld’s The Teacher who Came to Rivertown. Here, Bob Perthall and his family move to Rivertown, Alaska, a remote village of 75 people. Accepting the position of teacher/principal, Perthall’s good intentions collide with subsistence, alcoholism, hardship, long-held customs and personal crisis. At schools end, the people of Rivertown finds no surprise in Perthall’s ending defeat. However, what really concerns us about the “teaching case,” is Perthall’s lack of preparedness for the students and culture of Rivertown, ultimately continuing the cycle of an ineffective school.

Education looked remarkably different than the Education that takes place today in Canada’s schools. Before European contact, “Indigenous peoples in North America had a highly developed education system” (Neegan, 2005, p. 4). Their education was based on experiential and immersion learning in the community and in nature. The whole community was responsible for teaching the younger people through the sharing of knowledge and resources (Neegan, 2004). Respect for the environment and the land was intricately woven into all forms of learning, as the land is the center of their livelihood

The goals of public education revolve around three main areas that include; the political goals of schooling, the social goals of schooling, and the economic goals of schooling. These goals were placed with the idea that all children should receive public education whether you were poor or rich and schools focused on teaching about political views and the law to avoid conflicts. Schools were the focus of many hopes for political, social, and economic improvement.

One of the most important decisions in any teenager’s life is what they decide to do after high school, the choice is usually between college and deciding to get a job and start making money. Although the cost of education in America continues to rise, the benefits of a higher education are substantial and can be seen in the success of anyone who has a college degree.

Education is considered a right in most first world countries and compulsory public education has been in effect in the United States for over a century. So, why do governments have trouble assigning a purpose to public education and experiencing student growth across the board? How can schools change their approach in order to ensure that their students are ready to create their own opportunities? Scholar and politician Winston Churchill notes in his autobiography, My Early Life, “But now I pity undergraduates, when I see what frivolous lives many of them lead in the midst of precious fleeting opportunity. After all, a man’s Life must be nailed to a cross of either Thought or Action. Without work there is no play.” (p. 113) From this it can be concluded that Churchill believes the purpose of education is to teach students how to be active in their community along with the importance of judgement and choice, in order to further the success of their country.

Higher education has a vast history; beginning in the early colonial period and spanning ten generations. With its wide range of history, aspects of higher education have changed as the ideals and reforms of society adjusted. Albeit, the missions and purposes of college have remained the same. In this paper, I will clarify the three main missions and purposes of higher education. Then, I will shift the focus of the paper to the area I would like to pursue in higher education and how it reflects those purposes.

The education system has demonstrably undermined the educational needs of Indigenous students in the past (Fletcher, 1989 and Eades, 1995 as stated In Hanlen; 2002). Though there has been much support invested through the use of money, programs and time, all working towards a decent objective in Indigenous education, there has still been minor developments in the results of indigenous education (Hanlen, 2002).

The school systems and the courses being taught are not up to proper standards for First Nations people. The author, Carr-Stewart writes the article “A Treaty Right to Education” to prove to her audience the schooling systems need to change and have been inadequate for many First Nations people. The author shows very strong arguments throughout her article. A main argument presented is that First Nations children deserve the proper education and teaching as non-First Nations children whom are provincially funded versus First Nations children’s education, which is federally funded. She argues that assimilation is a technique used by the crown in order to achieve their goals. The crown is slow and unwilling to help First Nations people in most cases, while this causes tension between the relationship of the crown and First Nations people. Lastly, another argument Carr-Stewart presents is a claim that the schools on reserves are inadequate and lack many fundamental pieces to a proper child’s education including: proper course material, funding, buildings and teachers. Carr-Stewart shows various strengths and weaknesses throughout her article “A Treaty Right to Education”. Repetition and unnecessary content is found within Carr-Stewart’s article. She shows repetition within her quotations and while adding unimportant information; she leaves out several important ideas that could have improved her article. While the article by

7). Teachers who have not had much experience teaching need guidance from teachers who have been working in the field for some time. The First Nations schools need teachers who are educated as well as culturally knowledgeable. Research by Barman and Battiste (1995) supports, “In 1982, in her study of learning in a Native Alaskan village, Barbara Harrison observed that orientation for new (non-Native) teachers often consisted of nothing more than instruction in how to do the paperwork” (p. 146). Students need to be educated in many ways; however, it is important for First Nations children to be taught their culture. This may include language classes and ceremonies. First Nations teachers bring a culture-based approach to Native education. This makes them the immediate agents of contact. First Nations teachers bring their wealth of knowledge and culturally patterned ways of organization and passing on that knowledge within the classroom. They also bring the communities value system concerning what is important to learn and how most appropriately to learn it. (Barman & Battiste, 1995, p. 146). The role of a teacher on the First Nations reserve is a very important position and because of the importance of this position, it is important that these teachers are recognized for the work that they do. This should reflect their salary and the funding these schools get and rightfully deserve. There

• using songs, chants, and stories that emphasize the counting sequence, both forward and backwards and from different points within the sequence, and that focus on the tricky teens when the students are ready;

Around 1840, Euro-American imperialists imposed policies to terminate the passing of knowledge, language, and culture between generations (desLibris, 2015). Following the rise of residential schools, Indigenous knowledge was becoming

Getting educated is very important for every person. It goes without saying that each of us has to have a proper education. We learn how to read, count and write. These are the basic abilities we acquire and use during our life. Is there any other purpose of education or it is aimed only at giving us a possibility to communicate our ideas and satisfy basic needs? During centuries, there were different interpretations of the purpose of education. Many scientists, pedagogues and philosophers tried to answer the question: what is the purpose of education? Taking into consideration the needs and tendencies of a modern society, we can assume that the purpose of education is to prepare students to be self-sufficient citizens capable of solving

The purpose of university education is not only to gain more knowledge for future careers, but to educate people from becoming illiterate. University education was first established in 1636 by John Harvard. His first purpose was to train students to becoming Christian ministers, which resulted into a prestigious school for students to attend. Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts was primarily a puritan college because of the era of strict religious beliefs in society. Students that attended Harvard were very wealthy because of the high costs that was in demand to receive a higher education at a private university. As years past, students were not able to continue their education after high school because they did not have the money to attend a private university, so the idea of a public university would be established in 1795. The University of North Carolina was the first public university that gave people who were not rich an opportunity to receive a higher education, and democratize education for everyone. This university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina was established by William Richardson Davie. As more universities were being developed, a new system of higher education would be introduced in 1901. The first public community college was Joliet Junior College. Founded under Superintendent J. Stanley Brown and William Rainey Harper, President of the University of Chicago. This new system of higher education gave more people the opportunity to go

Every now and then I think about my education from kindergarten through senior year of high school and I wonder where I would be and who I would be without it. I have realized that those thirteen years of my life were essential to my development as an individual, for they have shaped me into the person I am today.