Careers in education remain underappreciated
Meina Kaleyah
Issue date: 7/3/09 Section: Ed-Op
Education spans beyond watching kindergartners finger paint. The quality of the academic experience holds heavy consequences. It is evident that the U.S. trails significantly behind other industrialized and some non-industrialized countries scholastically. Recent economic crises alone can be directly linked back to an America corrupted and compromised by banks and insurers alike because of a lack of knowledge and financial competency. According to a recent report conducted by the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board, approximately 52.2 percent of working-aged residents of Philadelphia lack basic literacy skills. This is a mere microcosm of the education issues we face today, and not as children but instead as adults.
As an educator, there is the opportunity to ameliorate similar circumstances for those in need at any age. At the administrative level, those in the education system can dictate where money is allocated and can affect the performance of an entire student body. A career in academia can be extremely rewarding; not only do College of Arts and Sciences undergrads get a break when it comes to employment, but the corporate tedium is near-absent. Certainly, there are other politics involved, but incarceration within a nondescript cubicle is a threat far and away.
The occupation of a teacher is an advocate for the individual. From early childhood to adolescence and into adulthood, a reputable education enhances and illuminates self-identification of the individual, as well as their role in their local community and society. Thomas Jefferson said it best, "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. Whenever … things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." By pursuing a career in education, one has the opportunity to mold individuals into such a "well-informed" populace and evade the banality of corporate life.
Meina Kaleyah is a pre-junior majoring in Mathematics. She can be reached at op-ed@thetriangle.org
As an educator, there is the opportunity to ameliorate similar circumstances for those in need at any age. At the administrative level, those in the education system can dictate where money is allocated and can affect the performance of an entire student body. A career in academia can be extremely rewarding; not only do College of Arts and Sciences undergrads get a break when it comes to employment, but the corporate tedium is near-absent. Certainly, there are other politics involved, but incarceration within a nondescript cubicle is a threat far and away.
The occupation of a teacher is an advocate for the individual. From early childhood to adolescence and into adulthood, a reputable education enhances and illuminates self-identification of the individual, as well as their role in their local community and society. Thomas Jefferson said it best, "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. Whenever … things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." By pursuing a career in education, one has the opportunity to mold individuals into such a "well-informed" populace and evade the banality of corporate life.
Meina Kaleyah is a pre-junior majoring in Mathematics. She can be reached at op-ed@thetriangle.org
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Anonymous
posted 8/26/09 @ 10:14 AM EST
Why should we take the advice of a "pre-junior majoring in Mathematics?" I don't buy the concept that all corporations are intrinsically "bad".
My wife is an educator of several years, and worked in the "corporate world" for many years before that. (Continued…)
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