Do you think young people today value their education as much as Sara Smolinksky does? Why or why not?
I don't think people today value their education as much as Sara does in The Bread Givers. This is probably because an education these days is a given for everyone, at least everyone around here. School becomes more of a chore than a privilege and therefore we wind up hating it rather than valuing it. We resent our teachers for giving so much work because we haven't lived the alternative- a job. To us, time where there is no school is a time for just relaxing rather than working a job, or at least not working at a job filled with physical labor for 12 hours a day in a sweat shop. Education is a wide-spread thing, rather than a rare privilege and thus it has become less and less valuable as it becomes more and more common.
As this follows, a high school education has become nearly worthless in society, while it was once something that people rarely obtained. Even just graduating from college isn't revered as genius in society, not unless you get your masters degree along with your diploma. It is not just to the young people that education has become less valuable, but lower forms of education have become less valuable to society as a whole.
I totally agree with this. Kids these days do not realize that if we weren't in school, we would probably be working somewhere far worse, like McDonald's or something.
ReplyDeleteWhile there's no arguing that a high school education has lost value over time, I wholeheartedly disagree that it has become "nearly worthless."
ReplyDeletei completely agree. school is no longer a privilege and most students have no motivation
ReplyDeleteDramatic exaggeration, Steve, to prove the point. I know that a high school education isn't worthless, no worries, they have all those studies and figures and whatnot.
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