The Pertinency of Broadening the Minds of Students through Education

By Adetayo Olaniyi Adeniran. Adetayo, 27, lives in Nigeria and is a student at the Federal University of Technology, Akure

The word “education” was derived from the Latin word “educat or educare” which means to bring up, to develop, to educate fully all the potentialities of an individual. To educate means; to give intellectual, moral, and social instruction (Oxford dictionary, 2011). It is an action or process of giving instructions, either directly or indirectly so as to acquire knowledge, good attitudes, and values needed by an individual to become responsible in life.

It is a direct process when the student is being trained by parents or elder family members in the home, teachers in school or any other person in the environs. It is an indirect process in the sense that student learn personally from natural phenomenon; for instance a five year old student saw animals mating will have the understanding that sexual intercourse exist between a male and female and if care is not taken, he or she might want to practice what he saw. It is therefore more than reading and writing. Education is a process that starts when a man is born and terminates when such man dies. For the purpose of this essay, the writer shall concentrate more on direct education which is also referred to as formal education.

It has been affirmed and confirmed by various education researchers that the level of education in a region or country determines the level of development. Hence, there is a statistical significant relationship and significant difference between education level of citizens in a particular country and their level of overall development. It shapes the region economic value and complementarity, social integration, and spatial interaction with other regions. More importantly, education enhances peace, integrity, respect, noble heritage, self fulfillment and actualization.

Furthermore, the role of education should be to broaden the minds of student because a broadened mind will have the right perspective about working life. A broadened mind will not only make the students be effective but also efficient. The major difference between efficiency and effectiveness is right timing (doing the right thing at the right time in the right condition through the right means to yield the right result). Having the right perspective of life is a function of the amount of structured education one received. The ability of a country to properly filtered externalities arising as a result of globalization and been able to imbibe the positives and trash the negatives is dependent on education.

Naturally, a newly born child is not taught before committing evil deed, he bites the nipple of his mothers’ breast and smile to the mother. It can therefore be stated that all human are born evil and the combination of human beings made up the world we live in and the world became sinful and dark, full of evil deeds from human. The child continues to transition from one state to another and in the process, he cannot be void or empty. Education is very significant in each phases of the child development. It will help structuring the mind to display the positives. Education given to such child in each phase is like a building block. The togetherness of the blocks will be useful to the child and the environs in future.

In addition, it is affirmed in the Holy Bible (Matthew chapter 12 Verse 34-35) that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him. Storing of good things in the man is being done sequentially which starts from the moment the child is born. This process is referred to as education. Therefore, how a man carries out his work life activities is dependent on the amount of quality or good things stored up in him over the years. In order to ensure peace, moral, normalcy and positives in the world we live in, there is need for the right structured education.

Moreover, understanding the nature of man, human being is a system on his own which comprises of various sub-systems or components that work together to realize the living existence of that system. Among the several components is the reasoning component. The reason component will also be considered as a system on its own which comprises of various components. The components of human reasoning comprises ofa. The mind;b. The heart; andc. The brain.

As Ribosome is the main seat of proteinsynthesis, so also the Mind is the main seat of thinking and reasoning. The mind can either be objective or subjective. An objective mind is connected to the faculties of seeing, smelling, feeling, tasting and hearing. It can therefore be said that objective mind needs an object to be able to function. The functions of subjective mind include observation, imagination, inference and others since it is purely mental. It can therefore be said that the subjective mind does not require any object.

The mind is like the Visual Display Unit (VDU) of a computer which displays the amount of words, and teachings that have been deposited in the heart by connecting with the brain. The brain searches the heart to find out if a particular word has been deposited for use. In this case, the importance of education cannot be overemphasized. Whatever that has not been deposited in the heart cannot be made use of. The heart is the store house. The mind, heart and brain all work together to enhance high mental magnitude of students.High mental magnitude gives birth to inquisitiveness, originality, and competitiveness, commitment, consistency, competence, discipline and other positive characteristics. In a situation where there is low mental magnitude, negative characteristics such as, selfishness, corruption, drug abuse, drug trafficking, disregard for time, examination malpractice, cultism, human trafficking, prostitution, kidnapping, robbery, and many other forms of negativity are inevitable.

In the past, few people are opportuned to structured education in the developing countries. Despite the fact that structured education was not available for all, the indirect form of education which is the informal education was available to others. Those that acquired formal education have high mental magnitude when compared with those that acquired informal education. The formal category can reason effectively while the informal category can only think. The difference between those that can reason and those that can think is that thinkers cannot reason while reasoners can think and can reason. It is therefore pertinent to seek for a formal type of education. Reasoners have high mental magnitude and are made fit for working life.

We can trace the high level of globalization in a region to efficient delivery of education. Efficient education results to positive externalities arising from the impacts of globalization while inefficient education results into negative externalities arising from the impacts of globalization. Efficient education helps increase the productivity and diversify market in a country, resulting into increased Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The role of family in the society is very germane. Therefore, the aim of education cannot be realized unless the family possesses certain characteristics. The characteristics will be derived from the abbreviated word “FAMILY”. The various alphabets connote the following meaning:

F – Fellowship: In fellowship, there is communication and togetherness. Education is promoted when the parent communicates with the children and vice-versa. This gives room for adequate and proper correction.A – Acceptance: Psychological and temperamental differences should not be allowed to hinder inquisitiveness of a child. It should be of importance that family members should bear each others’ learning nature and individual differences.M – Maturity: A family cannot raise high mental magnitude children without maturity. Maturity makes parent to know the right time and how to educate or correct a misbehaved child.I – Integrity: When parent lacks integrity, the will raise unprincipled children. The children will not be properly trained to know their boundary or limitation when relating with peers especially with the opposite sex.L – Love: Whatever happens in the family should be centered on love. In the atmosphere of love, the children are free with their parents and they will easily learn. Y – Yieldedness: Whenever a child is right, the parent should be conscious of giving kudos and encouragement. Also when the child is wrong, the parent should correct immediately and make sure the child discover the reason for correction, also ensure the child promises to change positive.

For the parent to instill sound education into their children the parent themselves must be of noble character. Education is a continous process that happens to human being from the point they are given birth to and to the point of death.

Finally, the essay rejects the proposition that the roles of education should be to prepare students for working life, and therefore affirms that the roles of education should be to broaden the mind of students. As justified in the body of the essay, a student with broadened mind will have right perspective about working life in the future and therefore be efficient.

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