ed·u·cate  (j-kt)  –To pro­vide with knowl­edge or train­ing in a par­tic­u­lar area for a par­tic­u­lar purpose–

With the aver­age teenager under con­stant bom­bard­ment of pro-education slo­gans like “knowl­edge is power” and “an edu­ca­tion is the key to your future”, one has to con­sider the fact that these same youth, bear wit­ness every day, to a mul­ti­tude of indi­vid­u­als who have received a so-called edu­ca­tion – in the form of high school diplo­mas or col­lege degrees – yet have no power, and in the most tragic instances, no future.

These mixed mes­sages, one a col­lec­tion of abstract clichés and the other, hard proof of their less than accu­rate por­trayal of real­ity, often cul­mi­nate in a large per­cent­age of our youth blankly star­ing at a text­book won­der­ing ‘what’s the point’.

In my opin­ion, in pur­su­ing an edu­ca­tion (in the form of diplomas/degrees), just as much empha­sis, or more, should be placed on choos­ing an area of study.

 Choos­ing an area of study–

In select­ing an area of study sev­eral ques­tions should be answered:

•  Will this edu­ca­tion pro­vide me with knowl­edge of how to nav­i­gate through, and manip­u­late the sys­tem, in which we live? If it doesn’t, will I be able to gar­ner enough indi­vid­ual power to remain largely unaf­fected by that system?
• What value does soci­ety place on my field of interest?
• Within what bound­aries will I be con­fined upon com­ple­tion of my stud­ies? Will I only be com­pet­i­tive for domes­tic posi­tions or will the world truly be my playground?
• At what age will I be able to retire?
• Will this edu­ca­tion con­tinue to ben­e­fit me after I’m too old to work?
• Am I really inter­ested in this field or am I gear­ing up to be a slave to a pay­check for the next 20–30 years?

These are just a few of the many life affect­ing ques­tions most stu­dents don’t know to ask…so never bother to ask. Had these ques­tions been explored, the stu­dent could pos­si­bly have entered into a field bet­ter suited to them.  Or, at least an area of study that allows them to become more com­pet­i­tive for exist­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in the job market.

In the pur­suit of higher learn­ing, many con­fuse the word “edu­ca­tion” with “col­lege degree”. While a col­lege degree will open more doors than a high school diploma, it is ulti­mately the area of study, or major, that is the key to access the nec­es­sary resources to carve out her future in this world.

Another kind of education

In light of the above stated impor­tance on choos­ing an area of study, there exists a darker, unfor­tu­nate truth about education:

Every sec­ond of every day we are being — pro­vided with knowl­edge or train­ing in a par­tic­u­lar area for a par­tic­u­lar pur­pose — whether we know it or not.

We are being edu­cated daily to achieve effi­ciency in cer­tain areas. What is to be con­sid­ered a fail­ure or suc­cess is com­pletely objec­tive; a high school dropout, can simul­ta­ne­ously, be a suc­cess­ful drug dealer. What he or she excels in depends directly on what he or she devotes more hours of study to. The most detri­men­tal aspect of the last sen­tence is…we are all study­ing, all of the time…whether we are con­scious of it or not. The fol­low­ing is an exam­ple of a pow­er­ful education:

Tina is a ninth grader at Berke­ley High, a cam­pus sev­eral times larger than her mid­dle school. She quickly finds her­self lost in an ocean of teenage faces, many of them pret­tier than hers. She finds her­self feel­ing lost and unim­por­tant until an older guy with sta­tus begins pay­ing her atten­tion. In the begin­ning she’s hes­i­tant and only comes around spo­rad­i­cally. These small tastes of a new and excit­ing world even­tu­ally trans­form them­selves into a hunger for explo­ration. Tina begins to spend less time study­ing math, Eng­lish, and sci­ence, and more time study­ing the effects of alco­hol, mar­i­juana, and unpro­tected sex. She learns to roll a joint, how to hide the scent of alco­hol on her breath, and after con­tract­ing her first STD, she learns which clinic to go to in order to decrease the prob­a­bil­ity of being seen by some­one she knows. As her aca­d­e­mic grades dete­ri­o­rate, Tina is kicked out of Berke­ley High and enrolls in a con­tin­u­a­tion school. As the prob­a­bil­ity of aca­d­e­mic suc­cess grows increas­ingly slim, she chooses to delve deeper into her alter­na­tive stud­ies real­iz­ing her time could be bet­ter spent work­ing a job and gen­er­at­ing income to sup­port her research. She obtains a fake I.D. and takes excit­ing trips with new acquain­tances to places like Las Vegas and Los Ange­les, all the while fur­ther­ing her stud­ies, mas­ter­ing her craft, and even­tu­ally tutor­ing oth­ers who show inter­est in her field.

Con­trary to con­ven­tional wis­dom, Tina has an edu­ca­tion. By the time she’s twenty-one she’ll be able to manip­u­late men twice her age into giv­ing her hun­dreds of dol­lars within min­utes of say­ing “hello”. In fact, it can be argued that by the time Tina’s for­mer class­mates are grad­u­at­ing from high school, she will have already earned the equiv­a­lent of a bachelor’s degree in sex, strip­ping and pros­ti­tu­tion. She’s inde­pen­dent, knows her craft, and is aware of how to han­dle her­self in the world in which she lives.

Why then, do we feel sorry for Tina? The prob­lems with her area of study can be eas­ily detected by ask­ing the same ques­tions stated above that should be answered prior to choos­ing an area of study. How­ever, in Tina’s case the sit­u­a­tion is more extreme because she allowed an area of study to choose her, relin­quish­ing con­trol over her future before becom­ing mature enough to know what ‘con­trol’ or ‘a future’ truly means.

In Con­clu­sion…

In clos­ing, knowl­edge is power, and an edu­ca­tion is the key to your future. How much power and what doors that key may open are entirely up to you. While it is impos­si­ble to con­trol every­thing, choos­ing to con­trol what you can height­ens your chances for self ful­fill­ment; you choose your edu­ca­tion, not the other way around. Respect your life enough to spend a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time plan­ning how you will spend it, then exe­cute that plan like your future depends on it — because it does. 

 Sev­e­ri­ano is a police offi­cer in train­ing, with a degree in African Amer­i­can stud­ies from San Fran­cisco State Uni­ver­sity.  He is the proud father of two small sons, and has an extreme pas­sion for the edu­ca­tion sys­tem and his children’s place within it. He decided on this con­tri­bu­tion because he believes that the choices for edu­ca­tion should be ana­lyzed early on in life.