Its finishing something- that’s what it is whether its high school or college. But I wonder what was really accomplished. A student in Political Science confided that he hasn’t read any book when he was in high school. What? And there’s an employee in the law office who doesn’t even know how to solve a simple algebraic problem- the lady employee has a diploma from a college somewhere in the University Belt. In my uncle’s college he has an employee who is a business graduate and yet could not compose a decent letter.
Are we to be content with mediocrity? Well someone before commented why do we need to go through algebra, calculus, why on earth do we have to know the history of the world when we’re going to become a nurse or going to be in a different field anyway. That’s a myopic view of education.
Education means enlightenment, freeing oneself from the bounds of ignorance. Just imagine a lawyer who doesn’t know psychology, or the history of his country and doesn’t know how to compute- what kind of a lawyer would he be? Or a doctor who doesn’t have an appreciation of the arts, who doesn’t even know why we should live, why we are who we are- what kind of a doctor would that be?
The achievement of the graduate is never his diploma- its what’s inside him or her. The skills that have been given him and their re-definition, the talent which is in him but molded to something better. The Greek religion tells of a story of a man who stole fire from the Gods, without the fire in our minds, society would be deaf and dumb even without losing its sense of sight and hearing.
The Church and petty tyrants ruled during the Dark Ages not because of their greatness, but because of the mediocrity of the multitude who allowed themselves to be driven like cattle. The task of the graduate is to rise up to the challenge, to become better than he was, to be enlightened that what he used to be. From being mere man to Superman.
