Should Schools Only Communicate Academic Knowledge, Or Should They Also Have Other Objectives? Essay, Research Paper

Education has always been an indispensable part of our lives. Through out the centuries there was a problem in specifying who can attend to school, for example women were not allowed to do it, but luckily this obstacle has already been overcome, and this matter is beyond dispute. However, there is another dilemma, one that has not been solved yet. The question is what knowledge should be conveyed in the process of teaching – should schools communicate only erudite theory, or should they also have other aspirations? Naturally, there are different points of view on this case.

The first cause to approve the fact that academies ought to have additional aims in tutoring is that they play an important part in bringing young generations up. It is said that parents are those who are to raise their children, but indisputably school is the place where youth spend most of their time. Hence, it is a good place for passing on the information that will help juvenility live their future lives. Consider the example of having sexual education at school, a dilemma which is at issue nowadays. The subject is not easily brought up and this results in the fact that young people leaving school know more about the reproduction of protozoa than about sexual and psychological aspects of human’s lives. This may cause tremendous problems.

But the case of having sexual education at school is not the only matter. The truth is that the strict academic knowledge itself is usually useless in real life, and so it may not be worth paying attention to it. Let us be honest – who needs to know when two trains setting off from two different cities and moving with a different speed will meet? People should be better thought to fill in the gaps on a cheque or thousands of other blanks instead of learning all those worthless things.

Nevertheless, there are also reasons for concentrating only on academic facts in schooling. First of all, schools were created exactly for that purpose. The world is spinning faster and faster, and people should concentrate on expanding their wisdom in order to survive in this reality. Our world needs more and more specialists in different domains and, frankly, people have to be the best to achieve anything, and gaining knowledge in maths, physics and other subjects helps young people make a success.

What is more, not only focusing on scholastic data is important, but also youth should have a chance to decide what subjects they want to specialise in. In many countries, as it is in Poland, a young person can choose a profile of the classes they want to participate in, for example they can be in a group which has more hours of English in order to become students of this subject one day.

Summarising, education undoubtedly is the basis of our lives. The question what knowledge schools should communicate is difficult to be answered unanimously. Perhaps the best way to solve this problem is following one’s instincts and concentrating on what we think most interesting and valuable, too.