ESSAY

EDUCATION AS A WAY TO BE FREE AND TEAR DOWN THE WALL

STUDENT
LAURA CATALINA CASCANTE MAHECHA

TEACHER
WILSON CASTAÑO GUAPACHA

SUBJECT
ENGLISH

GRADE
ELEVEN 1

2021
 EDUCATION AS A WAY TO BE FREE AND TEAR DOWN THE WALL

“We spend the first year of a child's life teaching it to walk

and talk and the rest of its life to shut up and sit down.
There's something wrong there".
-Neil deGrasseTyson

There´s a lot of factors that determine the advances that a society –and every single
person within- is expected to achieve. Among those, we have education. Understood
as the process whereby knowledge, habits, customs and values are transmitted to a
group of people with the purpose of help them to develop their physical and intellectual
capacities to the maximum.
A good education not only fill us with multiple necessary knowledge throughout our
lives, but also guide us in the construction and development of the personality, training
in values and principles that guarantee us learning to live together in harmony.
And, just like everything at some point, the way education is delivered has changed
over the years. Some time ago, teachers used to hit the kids when they disobeyed or
when they made a mistake, as well as yelling, insulting and humiliating them in front of
their other classmates. Under the premise “spare the rod, spoil the child”; It was thought
that the correct way to educate a child was based on violence.
Instead of give them the foundations for life, so they could finally decide their way
forward and be the protagonists of their own decisions and their own mistakes; teachers
were trying to control their minds and impose traditional ideologies that didn´t allow
them to leave the margin of what was seen as correct.
That alienation from such an early age -in which the kids are just discovering the world
and “absorb” or take as an example everything they see around- it can destroy their
creativity, cause serious and irreversible damage to their self-esteem, the perception
they have of themselves and therefore the way they behave with their environment.
Thus creating beings without their own identity, unhappy, hopeless who are
predetermined to follow rules becoming them in “another brick in the wall”. Obedient?
maybe but full of fear, resentment and trauma, which generates an infinite chain of
violence because whoever is raised like this thinks that it is correct and will do the same
with their offspring.
Currently, education is more flexible but not in a bad way. They value our essence more
and take into account multiple intelligences. They understand that we do not all have
the same facility to learn certain things, they are patient and do not mind explaining
more than once if necessary.
Now, we live in a world in which we are allowed to experiment. We can choose what to
study and it´s up on us, we have more freedom over our own bodies and minds.
Sounds a bit ideal and utopian? Well, compared to what was before it is clear that it is
much better. Sadly, there are still many people with ideas of yesteryear who believe that
current education does not contribute anything and continue to use unpleasant methods
to educate, imposing dogmas and trying to manipulate the minds of young people so
that we accept their beliefs.

In conclusion, even though the quality of education has improved. But there are still
many standards and stereotypes that must be eliminated, many things that are still
being imposed on us, even in many areas it seems that we continue to be
predetermined to act just because it is traditional and established, like the pressure to
decide the rest of our lives in adolescence, to get a good job because it is the only way
to be successful.
At this point, we are free and we decide what teachings do we want to keep to put into
practice and which ones do we reject. We can explore our creativity and let our dreams
fly. We can´t be beaten or violated in any way by an authority – just like it should have
always been- so that gives us more security and confidence to achieve success.
But in my personal experience I feel that they continue to focus too much on distributing
cognitive knowledge and too little on an emotional ambit. I think that´s really important
because being emotionally stable and healthy will make your interpersonal relationships
healthy as well.
At the end of the day we need sensitive and empathetic people in this world because it
is useless if you have a lot of studies and have a lot of knowledge if you are not a good
person.
And if each person is well educated and learns to live in their own way without hurting
others, and at the same time, helping them when they are in a difficult situation,
respecting and tolerating differences. Little by little we could make this a better place,
safer and happier for everyone.
“We don´t need no education”. We need one where we are active members who
question, reflect, participate in the learning process. Where they encourage our logical
and critical reasoning so that we are able to discern between what's right and what's
wrong and then choose the right path. Where our value as people is more important
than a note on paper. Where we are completely free to express our opinion and live with
the goal of being happy and meeting our own expectations and not those of other
people.
And so that education is a way to be free and tear down the wall.