SCHOOL – why should we bother? (from the perspective of Polish students)
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- Created on Saturday, 17 September 2016 11:52
- Written by poland
SCHOOL – why should we bother?
What is school to us? Most of all, it means friendships, relationships but also conflicts, which seem to be something pretty natural in every society . After so many years it has become an ordinary place for us. Going to school is our obligation, nearly a duty. Some of us go there because they must, others go there because they want to. Everybody has a different view of school and we just want to share ours with you .
The first question is: is there a meaning or purpose of going to school? Why do we go to school and what can school give us in exchange?
Well, many young people may disagree at first, they may have a different point of view caused by the lack of experience and a childish personality but eventually, we all come to a point in our lives where we agree that school is nothing but essential. School gives us knowledge and makes us wiser but we will talk about that later. There's just a slightly more important thing about school - it lets us meet other people, it is just a place where we can socialize. By sitting at home we wouldn't meet anybody, by going out instead of school we would meet many people, but most of them wouldn't even hear a word from us. Whereas in school we have a chance to meet all sorts of people. That's the ‘side effect’ of going to school. It helps us form our personality, it lets us meet a lot of people and have a constant contact with them, by meeting them in class or in a hallway, it lets us create many friendships and sometimes even relationships. It all affects our personality, the kind of person we will become. But the most important thing is that school, by being a place full of different people, teaches us how to live in a society, it teaches us the most important ability in our lives and our times, which we won't learn in any other way. It helps us understand the society and understand the highlights and downsides of living in it since the very beginning. It shows us what it is like to be a part of something bigger, a part of a mechanism that lives only because there are people. Without this ability we would be helpless, closed inside us, without the ability to get into that group as easily as we do when we're kids. It helps us overcome the fear of public talks, it helps us overcome the fear of other people, it opens us up.
But let's not forget about the main target of school, which is, of course, providing us with all the essential knowledge. There's no other place in the world that would teach us so many things as school. Of course, we can learn reading by ourselves or with the help of parents or siblings, yes, we can learn to count or read at home, but what then? Without school we would be stuck with just a basic knowledge about the world, where people without education have a hard time living. We would be stuck without the opportunity to help us, help others, without the opportunity to make the world a better place for us, others and our children. The school takes a few hours from our lives every day, sometimes even more, because of important exams, but that's all for our good, that's all for ourselves, we're doing it because nobody else will do that for us. Nobody else will go to school and learn for us. We have to do that, we should sacrifice our time now to learn, to get knowledge, to get wiser so that in the not-so-distant future we can have a good life. This is what school gives us in exchange for many hours spent on learning. Of course, school isn't perfect, there are many flaws, not every teacher is perfect, not every teacher should be in the position they are in, but that doesn't matter. What we should realize is that all these flaws don't matter if YOU really want to learn, if YOU really want to get something more from school than a bunch of bad memories, because it's YOU who chooses to work and to learn, it’s YOU who wants to create your own future. So even if there's a bad teacher, if there's a flaw in your school - you can fix it, just by overcoming it, by working at home on those things, if you have problems with maths and the teacher doesn't help you enough or doesn't make everything clear, then you still have yourself, your mind, the internet and books, you can help yourself with it by doing it by yourself. Everything that you need is ambition. Because otherwise you just won't care.
Yet, when thinking about that there arises another question: If the school is so good for us then why do so many people drop out?
Well, if we think about that then it's not such a hard question. Let's just look at the world around us. We all became lazy, lazy on different levels, but still.We won't walk 2-3 km to school/shop/to meet a friend, we will take a car or a bus, even if we don't have anything heavy to carry. We will send a text message to somebody upstairs just because it's easier than going there or we won't drive to the shop in the next city, we will pay a courier to deliver the package to our house. Of course, that level of laziness doesn't affect all of you, probably, but still, because of technology we are just becoming more and more lazy. Many of you probably think "well, of course I would do that, why wouldn't I? That's the easier way". Well, that's exactly the case of social laziness. People choose easier ways, even if they have to pay money for that (and in most cases - they do have to) because it’s easier for them, they don't have to care or they don't have to even move from the couch. That's also why so many people don’t finish school. Many of them are just too lazy, they don't want to learn, they don't care. They prefer staying at home, playing games or going to parties with friends. They don't want to look into their future, everything that matters for them is the present, the ‘here and now’. Everything that matters for them are those passing feelings of freedom and joy. These people then take exams, fail them and as a result, they feel demotivated. The worst thing about these people is that they don't want to hear that it's their fault, that they didn't learn enough, that they should care more about school. They always find somebody else to blame for their faults and then they just quit school. Of course, we don’t mean everyone who has problems in school, I know many people who have problems at school, who fail their exams and then have to take the same classes next year, but many of them know that it's their fault and they know that if they pay more attention and start caring more about school - they'll pass and finish their education at university or at least at high school. There's also a small percentage of people who won't finish their education, not because they don't care but because of the world that they live in. Many times these people just don't have a chance to finish school or even to start it, even if they want to, because they're from really poor families, from pathological families or from third world countries. It's not their fault.
We've answered two very important questions that may appear in a young man’s or woman’s mind.
That's all our opinion, based on our point of view but there's always that one more question, that bothers us all the time we're in school - what are the EXACT effects of school and good education?
Well, there is no denying that the world we live in is based on money. Many people work hard in school just to become somebody who they have always wanted to be, but would they work so hard if the work was paid as much as a cashier's job is? We all know that they wouldn't. We wouldn't want to spend many years working so hard just to be paid barely enough to make a living. We all know that the important thing in this is money, how much we will earn and how comfortable and friendly earning money will be for us in the end. Well, maybe that won't surprise you but you won't drive a lambo to your work without proper education (unless you win a lottery), so with knowledge there comes power, and with power there comes money.
Let us show you some statistics from our country: (information gathered from the Internet Studies of Payment in Poland, All-Poland Studies of Payment ) it looks like people who finished only primary school in Poland can make around 436 €/month. For comparison, with this money in Poland you can buy a 20-year-old car, which can barely move. Providing of course that you still live with your parents and don’t have to worry about the food or rent. People with only a middle school education earn about 530 - 740 € which is enough to buy a decent car from '96 which actually, somehow, still runs and will run for at least 2 years if you're lucky. This money is also enough to make a modest living for a single person. People with a university degree can earn on average about 848 - 1230 € (depending on the level of education they've got), which is really enough to make a good living in Poland even with a family (if both parents earn that much of course). These numbers might look small for you, compared to what your parents may earn in euro-zone countries but the living expenses are also different in Poland, they're way smaller if compared to other countries that are actually in the euro-zone, so these numbers really matter. Of course, I don't know the exact numbers for all of your countries but I can assure you - it works the same in every other country. Good education, finishing school and learning, being hardworking at school and caring about it really pays off pretty much permanently, because we won't lose that knowledge 'till the end of our days.
And that's all. Our opinion may vary from yours, but we’re pretty sure that at some point everybody starts to realise how important school is, even if there's a bad teacher/principal/anybody, even if the system of education is not good, even if we have to spend hours working at our future, even if we have to sacrifice a lot of things to become, whom we want to become, even then - it's all worth it. We hoped that this talk, even if it was based only on our opinions and our point of view, somehow inspired you or just, at least, made you think a little better about school. Thank you.
by Natalia Rymar, Angelika Wężyk & Daniel Mątwicki