A person’s education is one of the most important developments in their life. I went to public schools all my life, and am thankful that we have a system here in America where you can receive twelve years of schooling for free. We often forget what a blessing it is to have the oppurtunity to recieve that much schooling.

As I am reading a book this week written by Napolean Hill in the 1930’s, I found some interesting correlations when he discussed education. The same issues about education they were dealing with in the early 20th century are the same issues we are battling today. The main issue I am thinking about is how to teach students on taking knowledge they learn and use it practically their jobs. Knowledge is only potential power until you act upon it.

The strides we are making with creating classes geared more toward practical, including the hiring of more teachers with industry experience on the subject they are teaching. In my opinion, this is extremely important to a college degree. In education we need to keep adapting to teaching new changes in society, and an example is social media and cell phones in today’s workforce.

There are plenty of examples we can use of people who had little schooling but were very “educated”. One of my favorites is that of Henry Ford who had less than 6 years of schooling in his whole life, but was still very “educated”. Let me explain: the word education comes from the Latin word “educo”. This word means to educe, to draw out, to develop within. So, a truly educated person is one who is able to develop his mind constantly to achieve what he wants.

Henry Ford revolutionized the car industry by constantly developing his mind to achieve his goal of changing the world. There are other great examples like Thomas Edison who only had three months of schooling, but changed the world with the lightbulb. A more modern example is Steve Jobs who only had a high school degree, but kept developing his mind so he could take Apple from a garage to the world leader in technology.

I believe that we are going to fix the problems with the education system, because even though they have been around for centuries, I see tremendous progress through my own exprience. We truly need to keep the true meaning of getting educated in the forefront of our minds. I am thankful for all the people who have shown us what educating your mind truly looks like, and I am thankful for all the people who have invested in me to help me understand these lessons.