In today's world, paper qualification is pursued in earnest by individuals. An educated person is defined by the number of paper qualifications she has. Her claim of being knowledgeable in an area must be substantiated with copies of certificate, diploma or degree.
Do you think William Wordworth would agree with the direction in which education is heading towards today?
Do you agree that you gained knowledge even if 'sit you thus alone, And dream your time away?' or 'That we can feed this mind of ours, In a wise passiveness?.
I don’t think Wordsworth would agree with the direction of our education today because this poem reflects his philosophy in which nature is a teacher that can nurture our mind with its wisdom. Although I agree with Wordsworth that nature could nurture our mind even if we sit passively because our senses will be stimulated in profound ways, I do think that we need to meet a balance in obtaining wisdom. Books and nature are equally important in the process of gaining wisdom. I think that the knowledge in books allow us to be exposed a wide range of knowledge while the nature captures and relates us to the life experience by using our five senses. So, both the books and nature are sources of knowledge. The influence of nature can reinforce the knowledge that we gain from books and both are interrelated. The power of human mind needs to be nourished by the knowledge from books and the beauty of nature to inspire and enlighten us.
ReplyDeleteI think education and nature both are important and we cannot separate them. We are inspired by the nature and it has effect on our life as it enhances the knowledge we obtain from sources like books. In today's world every one tries to get knowledge by reading and searching while Wordsworth considers nature as a knowledge source which nourish our mind.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that he agree with this kind of education that we have today as It describes that nature and human feeling give a kind of knowledge and wisdom not found in books and formal education.
ReplyDeleteI think that we can not just sit and observe nature to gain knowledge and wisdom, it helps but not fully.In my opinion we can learn from nature and mix what we learned from it with what is available in books to gain the wisdom that we are looking for.
So the knowledge from books and nature are in close relationship and they complete each other.
I t seems to me that he did not agree with today’s education including reading books and having copies of certificate and etc. He believed that human can learn from nature. This is the nature which stimulates their feelings and prepares them to learn. The nature can teach something to people which they cannot learn from formal education.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, it is not possible to learn just sitting and daydreaming in a passive way. Nature may activate human’s mind, give them ideas to discover something or providing a person with opportunities to experience and learn something which is impossible to learn it by reading books. Nature can help us to refresh our minds, to put our knowledge into practice or to put our discoveries from it into books. The formal and informal knowledge are inseparable. All the knowledge cannot achieve by sitting in nature as well as by reading books.
However, it is somehow right that in today’s world we evaluate people’s knowledge by considering their formal certificates rather than their informal and passive knowledge, which maybe unfair. As we know, it is not necessary mean that a person with educational certificate means a knowledgeable person or a person without it means unknowledgeable.
I agree with you. We cannot see and watch the nature and learn something. Nature activates our mind and give us some clues and ideas to utilize them in our life. However, All the knowledge cannot achieve by sitting in nature as well as by reading books. They are related to each other.
DeleteI also agree with the last paragraph as well. sometimes people with no educational background knows a lot of things that is unbelievable.
In my opinion, I don’t think William Wordsworth would agree with the direction in which education is heading towards today. This poem tells us about the differences of two kinds of education. One is of nature and the other one is of books. Wordsworth believes that the nature acts as an instructor to our minds. He portrays that education can be gotten from nature and not books as nature is the greatest teacher. Since education system nowadays is heading towards getting students to get strings of A’s, it is definitely not of Wordsworth direction.
ReplyDeleteBooks and nature both plays an important role in attaining success. I don’t deny the fact that nature has its role in imparting knowledge, but so as books. Wordsworth has put in the importance of nature in this poem by comparing it to a person’s intellectual and spiritual growth. According to him, a person will be more attached to the social worlds by having a sane relationship with nature. This is true to certain extend. But it also means that you have to work hard in order to gain knowledge. Knowledge just doesn’t come down and shine its lights towards you. It is earned and valued for life. Although Wordsworth believes that through nature man learn everything, it is through books that these “everything” will make more sense in the real world. It is true that people are able to learn from nature, live in modesty through earnest of living but in order to achieve even a living; education through books plays its part too. Nature and books plays parallel roles in education, in which our education system at present times does not comply to.
This is what I found from an internet source, "Education in its general sense is a form of learning in which knowledge, skills, and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the next through teaching, training, research, or simply through autodidacticism.Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts."
ReplyDeleteFrom the definition I found, it is clear that genuine education happens when any knowledge or experience has an effect on the way one thinks, feels or acts. Does every man with paper qualification can be called a learned person? If yes, why most university graduates are jobless? But someone without a formal education e.g. Lim Goh Tong transformed Genting Highlands from an unexplored hilltop into one of the world's most successful casino resorts. So now the question is do we need formal education to become successful???
ReplyDeleteYou are right. We do not need to be educated to become a successful person as we can see people even with not high education or no education are so successful in their life. But, we should consider this point that education can not be ignored related to William Wordsworth's idea that nature is our teacher and it helps us to gain knowledge.
DeleteWe all need education to become better human beings. A formal education is a privilege for those who can afford but for those who can't??? We should be grateful for the education we have and use it for the good of us and the society rather than boasting the degree to everyone. Remember, empty vessels make the most noise.
ReplyDeleteI am thankful that I had opportunity to pursue my education and I really appreciate my parents' support and love and all my teachers' and lecturers' guidance during my studies.
DeleteThank you
Getting straight As doesn't guarantee one becoming a better human being but being a better human being guarantees a big A!!!
ReplyDeleteI am agree with you susan. you see in a society lots of educated people who are not good human beings, if I want to put it in simple words,but you see someone with just a primary education but he/she is a human being.as I know a lot of them around myself.
DeleteBut at the end of the day, in this century, people don't hire you because you are kind. They still peruse your cv and look for the highest paper qualification. Kindness today is equated to stupidity. People do not praise you for being kind! They laugh at you for being naive and helpful and take advantage of your kindness!
DeleteThat's true Puan Juriadah.this is what i think about all the time.I always feel unhappy when seeing a not educated person has to do lower class job even if they are kind. I always said that if I could I give them money to study to do better job, or remove some lower class jobs from the society. I know it cannot be a good reason for avoid this feeling, but this is the only persuasive thing i ever found as I studied in an article that, if all the people in the world get educated and high qualified, then there would be no one to do lower jobs.it doesn't matter the job is high or low class, the importance is that the world need someone to do this job and to make this world.
DeleteThe problem with today's scenario is the race for paper qualifications has left no room for individuals to smell the sweet smell of the rose. To share the ride with another person will rob you of the chance to be the one and only one at the top. Sharing means you are not unique, not different and therefore not worth to be noticed.
Deleteyes, you are right Puan Juridah... but I meant that just having a degree is not enough to lable someone as a human being(or a good person or bad person)......it should be both together.
DeleteI think this fits Darwin's theory of evolution very well. We are all living in a competitive world where certificates are the main driver towards success in life! We are labeled with our qualifications! We are living in a world where "only the fittest will prevail"! This scenario would never end.
DeleteI think its time that both are needed. The A and the big A. As how they'd say beauty with brains. There's no point being pretty but being dumb. What's on the outside will take you somewhere, but it's what on the inside that will take you to greater length
ReplyDelete