Our English Syllabus

I thought Lewis’ article touched on many interesting points. The point that interested me the most was his distinction between pursuing education for the sake of gaining an education, and pursuing education for the sake of knowledge in and of itself. He compared it to games and health: “Games are essentially for pleasure, but they happen to produce health. They are not likely, however, to produce health if they are played for the sake of it. Play to win and you will find yourself taking violent exercise; play because it is good for you and you will not.”

I found Lewis’ example to be interesting and made me think about the relationship between education and my motivation for obtaining an education. Just as someone said in class, I think we have a different approach to college today than in Lewis’ day. The average, middle class American is often expected to go to college. They are persuaded to attend college by their parents and teachers because “you can’t do anything without a college degree,” or because “everyone in the family went to college.” Although I think there are students who go to college out of their passion for knowledge, I think these students are more and more rare. This means that many students’ end goal and purpose while attending college is to get their graduation diploma, instead of learning for the sake of learning.

I think this causes many problems to society and to our educational systems. One of the main dangers I see is that students would become lazy and unmotivated. If they simply want a diploma, yet have little interest in knowledge itself, they risk seeing the education before them as pure work and not something with intrinsic value. If education is simply work to get through in order to reach the ultimate goal of a diploma, students may begin looking for “shortcuts” and try to “get by” without investing themselves in their education. In the past this may have been a danger for grade school and high school, but not for college. I would imagine that since fewer students attended college 100 years ago, less college students attend school because of expectations (and with the main goal of obtaining a degree); and those who did attend college were likely more passionate to acquire knowledge itself. It seems that that is now the role of graduate school. Those who wish to pursue their education at a deeper level go to graduate school. They will find students who are more motivated and whose purpose is to invest themselves in their education in order to acquire knowledge.