Education and Life Chances in Modern Education Essay Example for Free

Education and Life Chances in Modern Education EssayIs there such matter as secret of finding meaning in sprightliness? That might some what answers me base on certain articles that I but read and as well as the video that amazed me spell viewing. This first article defines life and its meaning which is Meaning in Life live the life that you need by Albert S. Wang, written on November 19, 1997. This article, questions you if you ar re ally contented and able of what you feed and if this is really the life that you wanted. It is say in here that to be able to live a life that you want and to ordinate a meaning on it you must(prenominal) first know yourself from within because this makes you know of who you argon, second is know where you want to go for it gives you direction in finding your happiness. These functions be beginning of having a meaningful life. To find the meaning of your life, you must find it with action not just by waiting for it to f atomic number 1 8 and you can excessively find this meaning in life not just in distant status precisely approximatelyly it is found near you.Putting a meaning in your life is all virtually the choices and decisions that you made on where you want to go. Just live your lead and youll see that each day you will grow in having a meaningful life. The second article that touches me is entitled So What Will government issue? sent by Leandro G. Cruz and shared by Joe Gatuslao of Bacolod City, Philippines. Its original title is A Life That Matters.This article is so inspiring because it stresses that all that you have got starting from yourself just like beauty, fame, wealth and all other liaisons that you have are just in vain because these things are not forever yours, these are just short-lived things and you cannot bring these things when you leave earth but what really matters are the thing that you made that others will regard as you of your goodness, the things that you gave not just in material aspects but in all, living your life with significance, teaching others and frame yourself as an example to them. All of these things are living a life that matters.This third article has an chartless author which entitles A Purpose. The article speaks that all of us who are created by God has a unique and significant purpose. Each of us is given a chance to find our designated purposes but you must wait when the right time comes because God has set it for you at a time when you are furnish and coiffe. Most of the time youll experience the roughness of life but dont be demoralise because there is al styles a helping hand that will take care of you, which is God who never leaves you.Just stay at the right path and do good deeds for in the prohibit you will find your own way to the eggbeater white gate. The next article is the one that I liked most which is The Journey of Our Life shared again by Joe Gatuslao from Bacolod City, Philippines. This article actually tells a story about the Emperor who owned a huge land and he told his horseman that if he could ride on his horse and cover as much land area as he likes, then the Emperor would give him the area of land he has covered.The horseman did not stop go and whipping the horse because he wanted to cover as much area as thinkable. Came to a point when he had covered a substantial area and he was exhausted and was dying. Then he asked himself, Why did I push myself so hard to cover so much land area? Now I am dying and I only need a very low-pitched area to bury myself. This story is really similar with the journey of our life because most of us are always striving for repleteness, properties, possessions, power etc.So we sound harder and harder until we come to realized that all of these things are not necessary for living a happy and meaningful life we must balance our way of living so that we could not missed something in life that might happen once. The next thing that I am going to shar e is all about the video clip that I watched its about an old woman at the age of 47 and her name is Susan Boyle who joined in a certain show that searches for extraordinary talents namely Britains Got Talent.During her performance, a big shock was made by Susan because at the beginning when she first introduced herself, everybody was against her like they are judging Susan of joining the show where she looks like so ordinary and nothing to show up but when she start on singing all where stupid(p) by her angelic voice and they gave her a standing ovation but most crucially the terce big yes from the strict juries. This gives us an insight that we must not judge the persons expression because youll never know whats the biggest surprise that comes from within. God created us with equal gifts and we must use this as an inspiration to others.This last article is a prayer entitled as Mere Possessions. Its all about the prayer of a woman who asked a help from the Lord, asking that she might not put much stock in possessions because things dont last and you cannot bring all of these things when you leave earth. That we come into the world with nothing, we leave with nothing. Having a meaningful life is about your choices and decisions that were made just make incontestable you have chosen the right path because if you do then youll end walking along the pearly white gate and that is the fulfillment of having a meaningful life.There is really no such thing as a secret of finding a meaning in life its just you who will make it meaningful by doing what is right and just live happy and be happy all the time because life is just too short, you might missed something so lets make the most of it. Public breeding, it can be argued, shapes society, instils kindly mores and indoctrinates the impressionable with those philosophies the elites value. This essay will tension upon three main areas intrinsic to the culture organization.These are the social return of ideas , the life chances created and instilled by dint of education, and the socializing of the individuals undergoing the educational process. Two main sociological perspectives that are useful when studying the education system are Functionalism and Critical Theory, because they focus on macro issues and social structures more than the interactionist perspective. Functionalists believe that the school system is an divisor of social education, which operates to re larn well integrated, fully functioning members of society (Webb, Schirato and Danaher, 2002 114).Critical theorists, conversely, hold that education is the most effective mechanism for promoting social change and for giving opportunities to less privileged groups so that they can realise their social standing. However, education usually reproduces existing social divisions, maintaining the relative disadvantage of certain groups (Webb, Schirato and Danaher, 2002 106). Munro (1994 108) describes the diametric approaches by stating that, functionalists tend to see education as synonymous with socialisation, while a conflict theorist is inclined to view education as ideological- that is, reflecting the interests of particular groups. Functionalists hold that the major institution for social reproduction is the education system, whereas, from a critical perspective, teachers, who oversee this reproduction, have been made into administrators of programs that provide manpower capitalisation through planned and directed behavioural changes (Illich, 1973 327). Illich (1973 327) comments, from a critical perspective, that teaching and learning remain sacred activities smash and estranged from a fulfilling life.This is because the things being taught do not line up with the necessary knowledge required for life outside of education, and that learning from programmed information always hides reality behind a screen (Illich, 1973 324). This operator that the knowledge provided is set to a secret agenda. Th e learning process, which supposedly passes on the values and mores necessary in society to students, is not, however, meeting these needs effectively. Relevant information, that is, knowledge, which will add skills to the labour martplace, is becoming less functional and more theoretical, expanding the spread doubtfulness amongst study and work.Regardless of this, employers and social elites have attempted to use the schools for the reproduction of compliant workers (Davis, 1999 65). This double standard has been discussed in a best selling song, The Wall by wiretap Floyd (1978) in which they separated that the reproduction received through the school system was set to a mystic agenda, and that society would be better off without it. Drucker (1973 236) equates the influx of educated people to the potential for producing wealth in any given country.By stating this, educational socialisation and the development of educated people is the most important function education can ha ve. He goes on to state that while this may be the slickness today, throughout history, being uneducated provided the wealth of a given nation, due to the enlighten differences, and that education was for the rich and idle while the work was performed by the illiterate. This all changed with the Industrial Revolution, and the invention of moveable type in the 17th Century (Drucker, 1973 232).The moveable type meant that education could be performed at a reduced rate, and terminology became a commodity that was necessary for improving the quality of the labour force. Education is purported to provide the best possible life chances for its graduates, yet in reality, in many ways education diminishes these chances. Heinz (1987 132) points out that the life chances of graduates are in a state of flux, that when the labour market is depressed and work is difficult to find, then boylike people will opt for more education as a means of delaying their entry into a tight work force.The school then takes on the function of a warehouse it is a place to mark time. At the same time school acts as a socio-political instrument for reducing social and political conflict, and this function gains predominance over its main function of educating young people. In many cases the donnish credentials earned are unnecessary for working-class jobs (Furlong and Cartmel, 1999 12), which changes the focus of education, making it oppressive and irrelevant (Davis, 1999 83).Heinz (1987 131) states secondary school-leavers face a worsening outlook when they want to start in working life, and joining a preparatory program is increasingly becoming the only alternative to unemployment. There are a increment number of young people who are finding it harder to find a place, whose prospects on the labour market are poor, being qualified but underemployed, or drifting between unemployment and occasional jobs (Heinz, 1987 131). This increases social inequalities and the gap between rich an d poor.By acting as a warehouse education is not preparing students for life but rather crippling their life chances. The alternative to this are to reassess the curricula and teaching methods, reintegrating skilled workers into vocational education, ensuring that knowledge will be of direct benefit to graduates in obtaining a place within the work force. There are fewer and fewer opportunities becoming available, and school leavers have to undergo more and more relevant vocational training. However, fewer school-leavers are able to go directly into the vocational training they want.Heinz (1987 130) noteworthy a growing trend 16 years ago that Depending on the region, only between third gear and one-half of these school leavers succeed in getting a training place, and in 1994 Munro (1994 109) sight that the school-to-work transition had failed which had major ramifications for everyone snarled, causing underemployment of school leavers (Munro, 1994 116). The seriousness of this trend is made even more manifest by the fact that school-leavers are even ready to enter apprenticeships that lead them into dead-end occupations (Heinz, 1987 129).Drucker (1973 232) however, states that while this may be so, to be uneducated is an economical li might and is unproductive, even though education is producing an unemployable, overeducated proletariat. (Drucker, 1973 233) According to Mehan (1973 240) education is a major socialisation agency, which moulds the individuals self-concepts into a socially accepted format, allowing each individual to be slotted into a specific function (Sargent, 1994 240). Sargent (1994 240) points out that in the function of education values are essentially involved and are taught beside worldly knowledge.However, this knowledge interprets the world, but does not necessarily correspond with any external state (Sargent, 1994 232). The transmission of knowledge, skills and values, helps to sort and rank individuals, that they might be bett er placed in the labour market (Munro, 1994 96). This raises a paradox, however, where education is seen by many as the best possible means of achieving greater par in society (Sargent, 1994 233), yet it categorises the graduates into job specifications, personality types and the opportunities granted to each.Sargent (1994 231) furthers this thought by explaining that the education system is an integral part of determining position and power in our society (Sargent, 1994 231), and that through education the class structures are compounded, making it more difficult for those in the working classes from advancing in the social hierarchy. The education institution both absorbs and perpetuates the ideology, masquerading as knowledge, which legitimises inequality (Sargent, 1994 231).Regardless of the inequalities produced, it has become the absolute prerequisite of social and economic development in our world to have a highly educated pool of people ready for the labour market (Drucker, 1973 232). In conclusion, the failure of the education system to reduce social inequality and produce better workers, raises serious doubts as to its effectiveness. Life chances created through education appear to be diminishing, despite the cite of education. The knowledge taught seems to be ineffective in preparing students to cope with life.Functionalists need to reassess the structure of education, as it loses its ability to effectively provide for graduates, becoming dysfunctional in its goals to remove inequality and give a head start to people entering the work force. When looking at the education system, it is necessary to ask if the damage spent on educating people is being effectively used, considering the increasing number of educated poor. The gap between knowledge taught and life experience needs to be bridged, for education to effectively function.If, as it appears, schools are to interact and reproduce effective and functioning members of society, the curricula ha s to be addressed. Bibliography Davis, Nanette J. (1999). Youth Crisis Growing up in the High riskiness Society. Praeger Publications, Westport Drucker, Peter F. (1973). The Educational Revolution, Social transplant Sources, Patterns, and Consequences (2nd ed) Amitai Etzioni and Eva Etzioni-Halevy (Eds). Basic Books Inc. , New York. pp 232 238 Furlong, Andy, and Cartmel, Fred (1997). Young People and Social mixture Individualisation and Risk in Late Modernity. Open University Press, Buckingham Heinz, Walter R. (1987).The Transition from School to Work in Crisis get by with Threatening Unemployment, Journal of Adolescent Research (Vol 2). pp 127 141 Illich, Ivan (1973). The Breakdown of Schools A Problem or a Symptom, childhood and Socialisation Hans Peter Dreitzel (Ed). Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc. , Canada. pp 311 336 Mehan, Hugh (1973). Assessing Childrens School Performance, Childhood and Socialisation Hans Peter Dreitzel (Ed). Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc. , Canada. pp 240 264 Munro, Lyle (1994). Education, Society and Change A sociological Introduction to Contemporary Australia Brian Furze and Christine Stafford (Eds).Macmillan Education Australia Pty. Ltd. , South Melbourne. pp 96 128 Pink Floyd (1978) The Wall, The Wall. pick Records, California. Sargent, Margaret (1994). Education for equality? employment? emancipation? , The New Sociology for Australians. Longman Cheshire Pty. Ltd. , Melbourne. pp 231 256 Webb, J. , Schirato, T. and Danaher, G. (2002). Bourdieu and Secondary Schools, Understanding Bourdieu pp 105 106 (Reprinted in Sociological Reflections on Everyday Life GSC 1201 Reader). Allen and Unwin, Sydney. pp 227 238.