The great significance of education toward the development of a certain person has been widely recognized by the vast majority of people nowadays. Parents will try their best to give their children the best education so that their children can keep an upper hand when compared with other competitors in the future career field. However, what is a pity to say is that what kind of education can be described as the best education has been argued and different people have different opinions toward education.
Therefore the following will apply the quote from different scholars to explore more about the essence of education, during which my own educational experiences and observations will also be shared. It is hoped that this can give some insightful suggestions as to how to look at education.
Firstly, the quote of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu that “people commonly educate their children as they build their houses, according to some plan they think beautiful, without considering whether it is suited to the purposes for which they are designed” has specified what is taught.
To put it more specifically, this quote claims that people tend to teach what they think is important to be known and should be taught to their children without taking any regard of whether the ones being taught have an interest in it or not. Or maybe it can be put in another way that education seems to be teachers-oriented and students have no initiative to determine what they want to learn.
Personally speaking, such education mode of teachers-oriented is not suitable for students to learn. Students-oriented is a preference if teachers would like to teach their students better because student-oriented teaching mode can better cater to the needs of the students in the first beginning.
A famous saying of Confucius, “teaching students in accordance with their aptitude”, has indicated the necessity to implement the students-oriented teaching mode. Based on this saying of Confucius, the schools, teachers and parents have to treat pupils as individuals and to help each and every student to achieve their full potential. Students-oriented teaching mode suggests that what is taught to students is of their interests so that they are willing to learn it, leading to their learning well in it in the end.
On the opposite, if students are taught something they have no interest in, then they may get bored at it and they won’t learn it happily and wholeheartedly. As a result, they may do quite poorly in it at last. So a fair knowledge can be obtained that what should be taught must take the students’ interests and purposes into consideration so that students can take the initiative to learn. That is to say, what is taught should carefully consider “whether it is suited to the purposes for which they are designed”, contributing to students’ learning wonderfully in the due time.
Just take me as an example, I was forced by my mother to learn painting in primary school and I had no interest in it at all. My mother held that being good at painting can help me improve my aesthetic sense and there are many aspects in daily life that require a high aesthetic sense. Due to her insistence, I have no choice but to take the extra-curricular painting class to learn it.
You can easily imagine that I almost fall asleep in the painting classes and I actually learned little from those classes because I pay no attention to it at all. Luckily, my father took notice of my being disinterested in painting and he asked about what I truly wanted to learn. I told him that I would like to learn swimming because it can help me keep healthy on one hand and enhance my immunity on the other hand.
Later on, my father and my mother held a consultation about it and they agreed on my participating in the swimming class. Soon after, I learned how to swim because I listened carefully and I am healthy. Through this experience, I have discovered that interest can definitely play a crucial role in determining how one can learn.
Apart from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Oscar Wilde has also put forward that “education is an admiring thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught”. What this quote means is that education can teach people nothing that is worth knowing even though it is believed to be an admiring thing.
So the difference can be easily detected that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu believes that education can really teach people something while Oscar Wilde deems that education can teach people nothing that is worth knowing. In my point of view, the standpoint of Oscar Wilde can be understood by that there is more value for us to learn things on our own but not by education.
Blankly speaking, many things can only be understood and learned when we really experience them and they can not be interpreted until we have really felt them. An example is our feeling, we are taught that anger is when you clench your teeth and hands and aren’t happy, but one can not truly understand anger until it’s felt within us.
Moreover, the quote of Oscar Wilde can also suggest that we are learning things all the time, but not limited to the moments when others are teaching us. As a matter of fact, there is much that can be learned by us and people can learn the most being out in the world.
I have always heard that there are many cases of people who can perform well at school, but they are unable to work as well as when they are at school. Maybe it is because that these people have not cultivated the ability of self-study and they are accustomed to the mode of learning while others are teaching them. Therefore they may be able to learn well because teachers will teach them all the time.
But what is different is that people have to learn it themselves in the working environment and it is rare for the boss and colleagues to teach them like teachers in the school anymore. Consequently, they fail to get the same satisfaction as the time when they are at school. Therefore it can well indicate the importance of self-study can be readily