Ralph Waldo Emerson Essay

Learning is a natural ability that is wired into many animals DNA; the way that humans should learn has been debated by the various educators because of the endless ways to teach. Teachers and parents take this matter seriously like Ralph Waldo Emerson in â€Å"From Education† and Todd Gitlin in â€Å"The Liberal Arts in an Age of Info-Glut† who created essays on education; and Billy Collins in â€Å"The History Teacher† entail for then and who wrote a poem concerned with the status of education. These people show what the importance of education is entailing what learning should and should not involve; a teacher should respect and have patience for children; a teacher should also let a child have creativity and lessons of the past. Many teens do not respect their teacher which might be because the teacher does not respect them; as the golden rule goes, â€Å"treat others the way you would treat yourself†; Ralph Waldo Emerson in â€Å"From Education† would probably agree with this quote because he strongly believes that, â€Å"the secret of [e]ducation lies in respecting the pupil,† (page 102). Shows that Emerson understood what children are thinking then did something to help them by simply respecting them. Another big issue with education is patience; some people do not have enough patience to guide children to what they are supposed to learn. Emerson also believes that patience is an important part in education, â€Å"to regard the young [children, they require] no doubt, rare patience: a patience that nothing but faith in medial forces of the soul can give,† Emerson was trying to say that someone has to really care in order to teach information to children (page 105). Some people do not see the point in having art classes or history classes; the reason why is because art assists students to express themselves in a way that words cannot along with helping them find out what kind of person they truly are; and history is needed to teach children where they originated from; and to show them mistakes that other people in the past made so they will not make them again. Todd Gitlin in â€Å"The Liberal Arts in an Age of Info-Glut† agrees with this â€Å"[students] need some orientation to philosophy, history, language, literature, music, and arts that have lasted more than 15 minutes,† (page 156) because students need the outlet to express themselves; or if they do not they would not learn morals then they would become exactly what people were trying to stop; as shown in â€Å"The History Teacher† by Billy Collins who stated, â€Å"the children would leave his classroom for the playground to torment the weak and the smart,† all because â€Å"[the teacher tries] to protect his students’ innocence he told them the Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age, a period of a million years when everyone had to wear sweaters. And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age, named after the long driveways of time,† this demonstrates how not teaching children lessons of the past which are the brood violence’ that others committed in history; by not teaching this history it affects children’s behavior in real life (page 143). Morals are right and wrong many people’s morals will differ; this is why teaching them is tricky because the teacher’s morals might not be the same as the parent’s morals. This is why some of the history in textbooks is sometimes just the summary of what really happened but not enough for the main point to be set across unlike in â€Å"The History Teacher† where, â€Å"the Spanish Inquisition [is] nothing more than an outbreak of questions such as â€Å"How far is it from here to Madrid? †,† and â€Å"the War of the Roses took place in a garden, and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan,† explains when a teacher goes too far in trying to protect student’s mind from bad; when only good is taught and everything else is censored then the students become the opposite; because they do not know the consequences of doing bad, which is why history is taught. As teachers and parents they have to let their students make their own choices as shown in â€Å"From Education† Emerson says, â€Å"it is not for you to choose what he shall know, [or] what he shall do,† shows that sometimes a student needs to find out the consequences the hard way, and let them choose what they want to learn (page 143). Education is needed in modern day society to help students and children grow and help the nation; by giving students proper education the teacher are not really helping the students but they are helping themselves. Teaching creativity helps a student express themselves; respect should be given so the student can give it back; patience is needed to help them understand; morals need to be taught through history so the student will make fewer mistakes; these are essential to a good education and an even better future: as shown by the writings of Billy Collins, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Todd Gitlin.