For most of human history, access to education has been a luxury, reserved for the elite, leaving the majority without the means for the pursuit of learning. Yet, just over 100 years ago, compulsory education laws became the status quo across the U.S. A far-from-perfect school system emerged in its infancy, kids countrywide gained access to education. Reading outdated novels, sitting through long lectures, and dozing off in class became every school-age child’s reality.
Learning is hard. It takes perseverance to craft the perfect argument, work through physics problem sets, or understand the work of some long-dead author. What is the point?
“The public investment in education would benefit the whole nation by transforming children into literate, moral, and productive citizens,” said the department of education. Students across the country are at a point of transformation, one that will inform the rest of their lives and allow them to become informed and active members of our citizenry.
Students in the upper school will likely complete their education in less than a decade. At the end of the day, there will be no record of test scores or grade point averages. The only person that will know if you took advantage of your education and opportunities, is yourself.
At academically competitive schools, it is easy to lose sight of why it all matters. The pressure toward excellence drives students to work hard to obtain the highest grades in all classes. However, in this battle towards excellence, understand that high school provides you with a protected time to wrestle life under the care of an institution and teachers who care. But too often, the focus is on short-term successes — scoring well on a quiz, acing a math test.
The subjects and lessons that you learn are valuable for life: English sharpens your arguments, history provides perspective, math develops problem-solving, language connects us to the world, and science explains it. To learn is not to get a paper returned with a circled A or your parents to hang your test on the fridge. To learn is to understand the world fundamentally, to prepare for an existence of understanding and growth.
It is a privilege to come to school; don’t cheat yourself on an education that will last a lifetime. After you graduate from high school, maybe college, or even grad school; a better-educated person will emerge. And, your time in an institution that is designed to make you a better, more knowledgeable person will be over.
The motto of SPA– shaping the hearts and minds of the people who will change the world– is contingent on the education of those people. To achieve this goal as the people who strive to make change– learn for learning’s sake, learn for yourself and the world. The process is not absent of struggle, but it is the greatest gift life has given you thus far. In the words of Nelson Mandela “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
