There's always a battle within me, a battle
between formal education and learning from life. But formal education is vital
to nurture my undisciplined and untamed mind. Learning from my experiences will
help me embark to an early search of wisdom, but it is through formal education
that I am able to practice my mental faculties to become the rationale of my
experiences. Both formal education and learning from life or experiences are
important to the well-being of a person; leave one and you will be left in the
miry pit of self deterioration.
The preparation of formal and classroom
education is clearly drawn by Walt Whitman's An Old Man's Thought of School.
Formal education builds the lives of young people as a preparation for a life
ahead when they integrate with the real world. As Whitman put it, "Building,
equipping like a fleet of ships, immortal ships,/ Soon to sail out over the
measureless seas“ (Whitman 134). Indeed, formal education can be
likened to a shipyard where ships are built and prepared. Formal education puts
the hull in place, the engines in perfect condition, and the entire ship ready
for the travel. Should formal education fail to do its job of preparing the
person, the journey ahead would not be smooth. It would be hard for a person
who's not able to undergo preparation by classroom education to get in touch
with the opportunities and challenges that are ahead of him.
And it is right, Whitman is, the future of
the entire nation rests in the public school. If our public school-formal
education system fails, we can expect that our nation's future will also fail.
"The tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes (Whitman 134)"
promotes the training of a person to make him or her a perfect asset for the
nation's future. Otherwise, these young lives will become the nation's
liability than its assets and helpmate for success. Otherwise, we can only look
back and say: It could have been better if we did our best to provide formal
education to our students than allow them to rule their own lives in wantonness
and despair.
In The School Room on the Second Floor
of the Knitting Mill, formal education is described in vivid memories of
public school. Formal education taught me how to stand in the line without
moving, to follow the rules without questioning, and to consider all things in
perfect submission. By copying letters out books, I was trained to give
importance to what I read and copy. It seems that the job was taunting and very
huge, but it was a training to love learning and knowledge. Without formal
education, I could have not learned to give importance to what I read – and
everything could have passed without notice and results.
In formal education, I learned how to work
harder to meet demands and expectations of others. It was bad to meet those
expectations, I know, but the training of "pushing me over the line (
Heitzman 185)" provided me the necessary attitude and outlook to excel in
what I am doing. Without such training of meeting expectations, I could have
receded to mediocrity and low results. But "I hear her every time I
fail (Heitzman 185)" to remind me that I can do well than what I am
doing now. It was formal education that stretched me to my limit and proved
that I am more than what I think and what others believe.
However, there are evils or extremes of
formal education that may do bad than good. Instead of allowing the person to
grow, formal education confines the person to its limitations, killing the very
imagination that could have fueled success in the life of the person. Billy
Collins summarizes this in: "I say drop a mouse in a poem and watch him
prove his way out” (Collins 57). Formal education should allow the
person to grow, to become who he is and who he wants to be, and not to be
isolated and confined by the limits of formal education. Then Collins goes to
tell how formal education can torture the young mind to stick to the principle
of learning as perceived by formal education. "But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out it”
(Collins 57). This is the exact description of what formal education is doing.
Formal education limits the person in the chair or in the classroom, rather
than allowing the person to grow and "feel the walls for a light switch."
Education should allow the person to unravel new knowledge just like searching
for the light switch in the dark.
And look at how Paul Zimmer criticizes what
Collins called a "torture". Zimmer speaks on how formal education
cries foul over mistakes and pressures the person to avoid such mistakes in
these lines: "Five number problems in a row,/ And was about to foul a
sixth,/When the old, exasperated nun/Began to pound my head against my six
mistakes” (Zimmer 21). Instead of helping the person to learn, what formal
education does is to pound the person against the mistake. It is as if in the
classroom, everyone is bound to be perfect, than a single mistake is like a
disease to be avoided.
Of course, we should not forget that only
through pressuring us to learn, we gain mental discipline that we would need in
the future. It was the "exasperated nun" who point us to our
mistakes who led to think more than to play. By placing us the burden of
learning, of avoiding mistakes, the traveling and unfocused minds of young
people learns to look at things with concentration. This is an important part of
formal education for without it, it would be hard to confine the person in the
chair to work on papers from nine to five. Without formal education, it would
be hard to find scholars and scientists working in their labs for almost 24
hours. But thank to formal education, the wild mind becomes a tamed beast - and
now it can do wonders as it goes to the "measureless seas".
My protestations of the torture and
confinement of formal education have finally come to their rest when I realize
what I have learned. When I am tempted to favor learning from experiences
alone, Walt Whitman reminded me that it was in the four corners of the
classroom and formal education "When I heard the learn'd astronomer,/
When proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,/When I was shown
the charts and diagrams, to add divide, and measure them” (Whitman 1057).
Without the formal education, I could have not learned these hard facts.
Experiences in life may teach one thing, but never about an astronomer of time
past. And without such knowledge, I could have not been much inspired to study
harder and work better to reach others have reached.
Truly, "I became tired and sick” of
the rigors of formal education, but it was through this that I "look'd
up in perfect silence at the stars” (Whitman 1057). I hate when my
imaginations are killed in the classroom, but it was formal education who
taught me how to make those imaginations works.
Without hesitation and fear, I speak,
therefore, that formal education is a vital part of a person's life. It would
be fatal to favor learning from experiences than it is evil to isolate one's
mind in formal education's classroom.
Works Cited:
Collins, Billy. “An
Introduction to Poetry.” History Teacher.
____________________________________
Heitzman, Judy. "The Schoolroom on the
Second Floor of the Knitting Mill." Learning by Heart: Contemporary
American Poetry About School. Ed. Anderson, Maggie & Hassler, David.
University of Iowa Press, 1999.
Whitman, Walt. “An Old Man's Thought of
School.” Critical Companion to Walt Whitman: A Literary Reference to His
Life and Work. Ed. Oliver, Charles. Infobase Publishing, 2005.
Whitman, Walt. “When I Heard the Learn'd
Astronomer.” Ethics. ________________________________________.
Zimmer, Paul. “Zimmer's Head Thudding
Against the Blackboard.” Learning by Heart: Contemporary American Poetry
About School. Ed. Anderson, Maggie & Hassler, David. University of Iowa
Press, 1999.
