What Leads the Light?

There is a reason or cause for everything. Nothing, or close to nothing, is done without reason. When discussing education, specifically in today’s society, one might ask why is education so competitive and overtaking? 

I often ponder this question myself. As Sherman Alexie saw education, specifically books, to be the leading light is a young child's world. Some children today are saddened by every part of education. 

Education has become a competition, from the young age of five years old entering kindergarten to the graduating college student at age 22 or older. Most students often find themselves to not be “good enough” or their work “could be better” because it is not as good as another students. Alongside this, school work has been increasingly taking up more and more time in a student’s life. In order to get accepted at better universities or other institutions, students are taking more advanced classes requiring more of their time outside of school. This being said, the competition of education is leading and overtaking students’ lives.

Ultimately, such rivalry is a result of the growing number of students and the increasingly difficult standards students face when attempting to be accepted or granted entrance to a certain school or down a certain career path.

However, I believe, alongside the beliefs of many others, that education should no longer be a competition. Students should find themselves both enjoying and growing in school, specifically in areas that interest them. Yet, such occurrence takes more than the blink of an eye. Students must be taught that every school can teach them and provide them with what they need to be successful, when it comes to colleges and universities. That they need to enjoy being a kid. That the rest of their lives don’t depend on where they go to school. That some of the most successful people were the worst students.

In society, we see education as the beginning to everything, so why not take minute to enhance education to better represent todays advancing society, and let the light to education be not the students who find themselves doing the exact same thing as every other student, competing with each other to be the best but be the individualized students competing with themselves to be better with every day.