“Education can be a desperate, smothering embrace, a embrace that denied the needs of the other, but education can also be encouraging, communal embrace – at its best an invitation, an opening.” (Rose 107)
The value of education is unquestionable. As stated, it provides openings, paths leading to the achievement of one’s goals. At the same time, it can be used as a controlling tool, an implement to achieve the goals of someone else; the pupil gets ignored. What is it that the pupil needs? What is it that they should be taught? Is it right to teach them what is commonly accepted as things they should know, or should they be taught only what is necessary to achieve their own goals? This begs the question of a liberal education vs. a functional education which has been wrestled with many times; scholars, professional educators, parents, and students themselves all have discussed what it means to have a ‘good’ education.
This paper will examine both forms, defining what they mean and which one is preferable. For the idea of a functional education, think of the definition of the word function: “a special purpose”. This means that there is an easily seen point of education, a clear cut path to goals. Also, functional education is exclusive to that special purpose. There are no extra classes that are not strictly necessary. A functional education would be facilitated by a technical school, or a vocational school where one could learn their skill ‘on the job’. Typically, this type of schooling is cheaper and quicker than its’ opposite, a liberal education. Defining liberal as “not stingy, narrow, or conservative”, it is clearly seen that a liberal education encompasses many areas of schooling. While having a viable goal, there are classes and procedures that do not seem to achieve that goal. It spans across many disciplines of knowledge and is usually mandated by society as something one must learn to truly become a productive member.
Firstly examining a functional education one can easily see what the benefits are. The cost is more economical and it is finished quicker. Although these benefits can also be seen as weaknesses of a functional education. Some would argue that because this type of education is cheap and therefore is not true learning. However, Hart would beg to differ. He criticizes the benefit of an education that, in most basic terms, must have been good because it costs more. Hart ridicules students who had been told that prestige and money meant that they knew more than the common man who went to a public or ‘lesser’ school. Looking at it from both ways, since an expensive education does not always produce a better education, one can assume that a cheaper one does not produce a bad education.
Next is the criticism of the speed in which someone learns in a functional school. People are frequently bombarded with late night ads of earning your degree in as little as two years. How, people suppose, can you possibly be a learned person in only two years? The answer is that you cannot without a functional degree. Remembering the definition of function, one remembers that this type of education provides one special purpose of educating someone for a particular task. On those same late night ads, one can observe the type of jobs being offered: dental assistant, assistant manager, minor accountant, clerical jobs in the medical field and the typical ‘so much more!’.
As one can see by examining these jobs and the type of status and money they provide, these are not jobs that require an extensive education. However, jobs with high prestige such as an architect, photographer, writer, entrepreneur and so forth can also be achieved with a functional education. There is a problem with offering degrees just for the sake of getting a job. If the goal was to educate people purely for functional purposes, then a human being would become no better than a tool used. A hammer is purely functional in its capacities to build houses. The architect building the house should know more than architecture, or he is no better than the hammer.
A person with a functional degree can know their job better than their peers who possess a liberal degree. Truly, job performance depends on that particular person’s work ethic. Going to school does not guarantee a job, nor does it solidify one’s position in that job. It is up to the person to use their education to their benefit.
Determining what should be taught and what should not be taught is a difficult task. There are arguments that a liberal education is the only way to educate everyone to truly be a productive member of society:
“But a University training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end’ it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying that national taste, at supplying the principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to popular aspiration, at giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating he exercise of political power, and refining the intercourse of private life.” (Newman49)
Thus begins the arguments for a liberal education. Liberal is not narrow, has no special purpose, no specific tangible function. Although it may seem pointless to the average pupil, learning about one’s own society on top of every detail of the subject matter being studied and produces unbelievable advantages. One who is broadly educated in the truest sense of the word obviously has more advantages, more experience to draw upon, and ideas to implement. This value is inherent in our culture:
“There is a strong impulse in American education – curious in a country with such an ornery streak of antitraditionalism – to define achievement and excellence in terms of the acquisition of a historically validated body of knowledge, an authoritative list of books and allusions, and a canon.” (Rose 113)
Rose explains that this is inherent in our culture today because it satisfies a need to certify our intellect; a way to gauge a person’s IQ is to see what they know. A liberal education helps provide a true understanding of one’s culture. Once one can understand themselves, then they can seek to understand others motives and desires. In a job market where money is made off of making the customer happy, it is important to understand others: the customer.
These entire points boil down to the bottom question: Which is better? What should every person be taught? The answer is not as simple as the question. Rose best puts it in his paper ‘Lives on the Boundary’. In it, he describes poor immigrants and the lesser educated struggling to survive. Should they, if pursuing an education, be forced to be taught things that will not directly help them succeed? It is a question whether we are cheating the common man out of a great knowledge base when we recommend a functional education for those who are poor, who posses a language barrier, who simply do not have enough time to learn it all. Whether or not this makes them lesser educated or not as intelligent is easy enough to answer.
No.
As it has been stated before, it all depends on the person’s work ethic and drive. The answer to the question as to whether or not a liberal or functional education is better: it differs from person to person. Some would thrive on the knowledge of their ancestors, the past, and what society deems is its great works; for others, this would seem needless in knowing how to perform in their job. As Hart pointed out, an education that is deemed ‘better’ is not necessarily better. It is the person who makes their education, the person who decides how to use their knowledge, and the person who decides what knowledge they need that makes education ‘better’.
To put an end to this debate, it is concluded that there is no ‘better’ education. An education with a specific purpose does not triumph over a broader education, and vice versa. It is commonly proven that the education, while it may help, does not make a person. Only that person’s decisions in what they choose to know and implement makes that person functional in their careers.
What Dr. Watson Had to Say on My Final:
G The paper smoothly guides the reader through a series of stated points or examples
G The paper compels and maintains the reader's attention, and the voice may be compelling.
G The writer is obviously in control of standard, edited American English. There are very few, if any, distracting mechanical and/or grammatical errors.
G There is an effort in the paper to develop both a variety of examples and adequate transitions between the examples. ( ½ ) Transitions are not always adequate. For example, using the phrase “As stated,” to refer the reader to your opening quote. A more eloquent way of transitioning and referring here would be something like “As we can see in the opening quote, …” Also the transitions between paragraphs 2 and 3, 5 and 6, 7 and 8, and 11 and 12 (the last paragraph) are not adequate. You need to think carefully about how you can smoothly transition between paragraphs in your future papers.
G The sentence and paragraph structure is competent and functional, and the paper has few distracting surface errors. Numerous distracting surface errors appear throughout this essay, indicating insufficient attention was paid to final editng. This includes grammatical errors (e.g., a sentence fragment on p2), mixing singular and plural (throughout the essay), incorrectly quoting (e.g., you made important typos in the opening quote), and paragraphing problems (p3). The overall quality of your paper suffers because of these errors.
