Schooling and Education and Skateboarding- oh my..

Mark Twain once said, "I've never let my schooling interfere with my education."

This quote makes sense. We live in a country where schools are trained with one basic purpose- teach what's on the curriculum, throw the information out there, test the little children, and break out the red marker when it's time. That's schooling. Schooling is turning out as many viable "passes" as possible. Education is a different matter. Education is learning something because it needs to be learned, not simply for the sake of learning. Education is what life teaches you, not a curriculum board.

Dr. Tae is attempting to teach us something that we usually don't learn in school- how to never give up. A lot of times we get a homework assignment and when we turn it in, that's it. We take a test and it gets graded, that's it. In this class, however, we write a paper, turn it in, get it back, and are told to make it better, to keep with it and DO something. Trying to learn something by teaching ourselves teaches us a lot more than simply what we're trying to learn. So I taught myself piano, right? Well, I didn't have a teacher, so I had to figure it out on my own. If I failed, it was my entire fault, no one else's. If I wanted to learn this, I would have to maintain my diligence. I did, and I learned. That's what Tae is trying to show us. He uses skateboarding as his example. Skateboarding provides instant feedback and a cut-and-dry evaluation- either you did it or you didn't. Using skateboarding as his example proves very effective, because it's something that a lot of people can relate to, either through skateboarding directly or through some other activity. Because of this, he related very well with the people he was speaking to it seemed, and I could definitely relate. I believe he did a great job overall and the randomness in the connection between the subject matters proved to be effective and exactly what was needed for him to effectively get his point across.

(355 words)