My thoughts on the true goal of education

“Tita, may project po kami sa TLE [Auntie, we have a project for TLE].”

“Anung project yan? [What kind of project is that?]”

“10 pesos po.”

“Anung 10 pesos? [What do you mean 10 pesos?]”

“Sabi po kasi nila magbayad nalang po kami ng 10 pesos para di na kami mahirapan sa pagresearch [They told us that we should just pay 10 pesos so we wouldn’t have to be burdened by researching].”

                I’d like to say I was shocked, but then I’d be lying. I’ve gone through the same process back in high school. Teachers asked us to contribute a certain amount of money instead of going through a tedious and difficult assignment, in order to accomplish a requirement in school. Back then, I was only too eager to just pay up. After all, why should I break my back on some project when I can just spare a few bills, sit back and relax, right?  Well, now, knowing what I know, I’m not so happy about it anymore. In fact, it irritates me that nowadays, teachers are so glaringly conspicuous in stirring students to laziness. Sure, it’s a shortcut to a grade of 90 or 95 even, but grades are so over-rated. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be concerned about the grades we get, but in the end, they’re just numbers. In my opinion, the true goal of education should not be about getting the highest numbers on your report card, but about getting the most out of the hardships and painstaking labor that goes with schooling.

To teachers: 

          Being a teacher is not the easiest job in the world. In fact, students, myself included, often underestimate how truly difficult it is to be in front of 40 or so expectant young ones, who think of you as an all-knowing shaman extraordinaire. 

                When I was a kid, I thought all teachers did were talk in front, check quizzes without a care, and more importantly, torture students. Now, I know, those are easier said than done. You don’t just talk in front; you mentally prepare yourself by extensively educating yourself about the subject matter, practicing answering questions that you anticipate the students, who are more often sharper than you, may challenge. You practice and practice talking in front of the mirror, hoping that the nervousness you’re feeling won’t show half as much as what you are actually feeling inside so that you won’t look incompetent to your students. You don’t just check quizzes; you give up most of your social life, and sometimes dinner, just to sit and go through exams, hoping that your students get high scores so that you’ll know that you were effective and that they actually learned something from you. You spend late-night hours going through papers, trying to decipher you students’ handwritings which look more like hieroglyphs. You don’t torture students, although sometimes it feels like a good idea; you challenge their capabilities in order to hone their critical thinking. You give them not-so-average problems or tasks so that when they succeed, they’ll grow more, intellectual wise. Everything you do, you do it for their own good, although most of the time, your efforts come off as persecution rather than the other way around. 

                 It is a very, very physically and mentally draining job that sometimes, it feels like a good idea to just let your students take the easy way around projects, so that you also, won’t have to take a rough time in checking. Sometimes, it’s tempting to just let them pay their way through an A. But, really, can your conscience take the fact that, in doing so, you’re robbing them of the chance to mentally grow by themselves and of the opportunity to prepare themselves for the infinitely more grueling undertakings ahead? Would you really compromise your chosen position as a teacher, as a molder of minds, just for a few hours of leisure?

To students: 

              As teenagers, especially those still in high school, you feel as though school is prison, and the classroom is your jail cell. You think that going to the mall or playing computer games all day are the things that you should be doing instead of homework. You think that going to school is just a waste of time and the things you learn in it are things that you would never use in real life anyway. Trust me; you’re missing the whole point. True, in the future, unless you’re a mathematician, a scientist or a teacher, cosines won’t help you put food on the table; knowledge of the hypotenuse won’t pay for your rent; and knowing what photosynthesis is won’t pay for your bills. But, I believe that the whole point of learning all that trivia is not to memorize what they mean or do but to develop a critical mind in the process. I mean, come on, learning how to solve for x isn’t easy. You won’t get it, ‘till blood comes out of your nose. But those hemorrhage-inducing tests serve as practice for your brain. Like a well-sharpened axe, these tests keep you on the ball, alert and quick-witted. Like a well-oiled machine, these lessons keep you quick on your toes and astute. Believe me; if you’re planning on being successful in life, you’re going to need that in the future.

                  School is never easy. In life, nothing is ever easy. You high school students think you got it rough, wait ‘till you go to college. I remember my first two years as a college student. The unbelievable amount of work we had to go through was a bit shocking to me. I wasn’t trained enough in high school to handle this amount of work, not to mention research, research and more research. I had it easy before, all I had to do was pay up or copy from my classmates. I found out, you can’t do that in college anymore (or at least, not in the college I attend at). So it’s best that you take up the training you get in high school, even if it feels like your head might explode and your body might go limp, because in the end, everything will be for your own good. It might sound cliché, but really, it can’t get any simpler than that.

It really is true what they say: there is no such thing as a shortcut to happiness.