by Vishaal Kuruvanka
April 13th, 2022

Most clearly put, education is the quest to understand the world around ourselves and then to understand our role in it. These two facets are what humans constantly ponder. In the modern day, education begins in kindergarten and ends for a majority of Americans after high school or college. The function of these institutions is to teach us tools to fulfill our need to understand the world and ourselves. It is also the single best investment an individual can make both in monetary and time use. Education allows us to lead healthier, happier and more fulfilled lives.

Generally, the skills needed to lead a fulfilling life are the ability to communicate, which is more commonly taught to us through literature and composition. Logic, reason and numbers are needed within the realm of communication and are taught to us primarily through mathematics. Natural History is taught to widen perspective on our existence as a species. To understand the systems we operate within currently, we study our past through history. The various forms of art are taught to practice expressing ourselves outside of the realms of logic and reason. Predating the United States' separation of church and state, religion was taught to give us a model to strive towards in leading a fulfilling life.

Before the internet and for a majority of mankind’s existence, information was hard to get a hold of. Books were the means of access to information and were generally scarce and reserved for the wealthy. It is only in recent centuries, through technological progress, that information has become widely available. The way education works in the United States is still based upon the old model where information was scarce and required that the facts be memorized. In our era of high speed internet, the imbibing of information is not the issue but rather the way the information is creatively used. 

The base of our education system should be cultivated around the notion of building and creating. Our species has continued to build, century upon century to get us to where we are now. Building is the skill that is the hardest to learn and therefore the last to get wiped out by the growing automation that is proliferating through society.

An emphasis on the merging of art and science and the ability to draw on multiple areas of knowledge will be required to solve the complex problems that will arise. Education is also the most effective means for lowering the inequities that exist within our society because as individuals become more educated, they become more rational actors and better decision makers within their lives. Education illuminates parts of the self that were not known to the student before and is the ultimate path of realizing who they are as a person. If education is effectively and equitably pushed to all corners of our country then we may all benefit from having more Elon Musks, Benjamin Franklins, Abraham Lincolns, Bill Gates, Ray Dalios, Cornell Wests, Toney Morrisons, Barack Obamas, Wright Brothers, Da Vincis and Roosevelts all pushing our country and species into the new era of computation and space exploration. The next essay will focus on the history of education within the United States to better understand the way our system works today.