Paper Topic:

English

What is Wrong with Education

Albert Jay Nock describes what he terms as a change in the purpose of American education . Instead of being for the purpose of educating any longer , according to Nock , the American educational system is satisfied with training ' the children that pass through it . He compares the purposes of training and of education : that is , he states that in the past , training had a vocational focus that , bore directly upon what he could do or get , while his education bore directly on neither it bore upon what he

could become and be (Nock par . 2 However , according to Nock , the differences between the two have nearly faded into xistence

One major disadvantage of education , according to Nock , is that it prevents people from working with each other , encouraging competition while training tends to do the opposite and brings people together . In addition , training typically encourages individuals to be happy with what they have attained in life , either in skills or earning power while education tends to cause a person to seek more than what he or she has . While these things can be both positive and negative , Nock asserts that the educated person tends to not divorce education from his or her vocation that is , the knowledge that a person has gained in class is valued only in terms of how much it might increase his or her earning power , rather than acknowledging the value of education on its own merit

I feel that I am both an educated person and a trained person , using Nock 's standards . I value the process of learning things as having its own rewards however , I also feel that I can do the things that I have been taught to do with a degree of competency , through the training that I have received in school . I do agree , however , that the educational process has less to do with my being educated ' and appreciating the pursuit of knowledge as its own reward than does my own desire to satisfy my own desires and my own curiosity

Work Cited

Nock , Albert Jay . The Disadvantages of Being Educated ' Client must complete citation...

2 pages

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