The gift of education
Citizens of the United States of America receive an abundance of freedoms and resources that millions of other people around the world can only begin to dream of.
Millions of people do not have access to free education and some of them have no access to any education at all. Those of us who are lucky enough to live in the U.S. have been given the great gift of learning, and we often take it for granted.
All children in this country go to school from 5 years old until they reach 17 or 18 years old. They spend at least 12 years of their life in school, learning in depth a range of subjects that make them more knowledgeable about the world they live in.
This is truly a unique gift that has been bestowed upon us. The ability to learn how to read gives us the ability to learn, to further our knowledge, and to immerse ourselves in stories that others have used their gift of imagination to create an enjoyable past time.
Throughout the 13 years of schooling, and for many into even more years of higher education, students are taught how to write. We begin by learning how to write a simple sentence such as: The cat ran. But as we age we learn how to write paragraphs, essays, and reports.
These two abilities alone give us access to limitless possibilities. The basic mathematics that students learn is a highly important skill. Although a constantly reoccurring question is “when will I ever use this?” the mathematical skills that are taught to us can often be implemented into our daily lives, we simply don’t realize it.
History and science are two other subjects that are taught all around the country. These subjects, although not as big a necessity, further Americans knowledge and success.
We learn about the history of our county, our state, our nation, and our world. History memorializes the accomplishments, mistakes and catastrophes that have occurred over thousands of years. It shows how we as a species, as a people have developed and have gotten to where we are today.
While finally science is a way of understanding the world that we live in, it tells why and how things in this world work, what makes up the world, and how it functions.
Education stimulates people to think, create and explore. The more we know, the more we want to know more. We create and explore. We wonder and create theories. And we work to continue to learn and discover.
The extensiveness of the education available to our children and us is incredible and allows us to continue to change the world. The access we have to knowledge is not something to take for granted while there are so many out in the world who cannot begin to imagine getting to learn the things that we do on a daily basis.