Education

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Education
Definition of Education
Education is a tool for social mobility as noted by Lubrano (2), he was born into the blue-collar working class family that fully depended on working with their hands to feed themselves but through acquiring a college degree, he ascended into the middle class social class. Education also causes unease and confusion between the values, ideas and instructions from blue-collar parents, and the choices made by the new kid on the block who has recently upgraded to the middle class social class.
Lubrano (3) noted that “education is used as a dividing factor between the working class and the middle class.” The educated group are ones that earn an income, have authority both at work and in the society, and they are able to control most aspects of their lives by using the knowledge they acquired in learning institutions. On the other hand, the uneducated group do manual work to earn an income and often work under close supervision.
Education according to Sattelmeyer (3) in Thoreau’s Reading is a pursuit that all men should aim to gain through becoming observers and students who seek truth from nature. This truth cannot be changed in the past, present or future times, because it is immortal. Education involves reading and emulating the heroes in the literary works which results in better solutions to problems and accessing understanding of the changing times (Sattelmeyer 8). Education includes acquiring knowledge in scientific study including areas like botany; classical language and literature involving lessons in Greek and Latin culture, as well as philosophy; and religious and theological studies that prepared students in the eighteenth century for ministry (Sattelmeyer 17-20).

Thoreau views education as thinking outside of the traditional norms, the standard way of seeing life and refusing to accept the conventional way. He advocates for paying attention to the ‘small things’ or the little details which will enable humans to notice the uniqueness in our lives and note our particularity. This is seen when he writes about huckleberry, where he notes that education is not about reading, writing, and arithmetic but rather it is about the little things that shape our universal. Yet many renown writers and speakers patronize and neglect the little things. Thoreau records small minute details of the huckleberry from the nineteenth of June to early August (Thoreau 470). In the practice of huckleberrying, he teaches us that education is all about seeing, thinking, and teaching ourselves from observing small details in phenomenon. It also creating an insight of the mind through exhibited worldly experiences, living in a free world to taste the wildest fun actions, and documenting our conceptualized thoughts.
Importance of Education
Education has enabled scholars who have earned college degrees and Ph.Ds. to enjoy the best working conditions in America. These persons earn high salaries and have the luxury of exploring the world where they live in. Education is a vehicle to uplift people from one social class to another one. And in today’s world, education has upgraded the lives of poor and positively influenced their lives and that of their communities. Educated people positively influence their families and societies through investing in social and economic activities.
Education is important in detecting likeness and uniformity across cultures and over time. The main reason people learned philosophy and history of different people was not to discriminate but rather find common grounds among the races and cultures. It is also used to positively influence the society as noted by Sattelmeyer (76) saying: “one did not go to school to the earlier writes, so much as to search for evidence for like-mindedness and the nature and extent of the influence.”
It elevates people and goes against the norm, where it is important to note that without education children born of manual laborer parents have less than 30 percentage chance of shifting to white-collar jobs (Lubrano 11). Most of them would eventually Education is the only avenue that can push an individual to join the white-collar jobs and move to middle social class. And furthermore, education improves the self-esteem and feelings of entitlement that one gains through acquired knowledge. The raised self-esteem enables individual navigate through life with surety that the knowledge that they own will guide them throughout their careers and in life.
Education is a ladder that people use to gain economic and financial freedom where those educated are associated with big bank accounts, big houses and enough food for the family and friends. According to Lubrano (12) who noted that “my parents foresaw a big bank account, a big house down the street from theirs and a standing date for Sunday macaroni.” The parents who had invested heavily in his education had seen a straight line from their poverty and merger wages. “My father and mother figured that my education like a genie-like and benevolent would somehow rocket me to an upward trajectory and load some serious loot into my pockets” (Lubrano 12-13).
The importance of education is that it encourages critical thinking as seen by the characterization of life by Lubrano. He admires his father and respects his drive to support his working class family through brick layering job. Education, enables Lubrano to understand and be proud of his roots. He knows the value of struggling to earn a living and the resulting feeling of satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. He also acknowledges the earned verses given mentality and the authoritarian home life he saw while growing up. These are some of his guiding principles that shape his adult life.
Through critical thinking, Lubrano (9) contorts a new word, “straddler” as transitional stage that young people, originally from blue-collar households find themselves in, after acquiring education. They are in a state of limbo, whereby the young educated aristocrats, who no longer fit in with their blue-collar families or the working class family’s status and still they feel out-of-place among the white-collar families or the middle class families. There is a discontent both at their working places, in social gatherings and home life. Throughout college life, the straddler changes and no longer fits in the family in terms of language spoken, dietary choices and religious beliefs. It is through education that such analyses are conducted and solutions discovered (Lubrano 95).
Thoreau values the education system and although he entered the teaching profession early as an undergraduate at Harvard, he also left early at the close of the private school he was running with his brother. He felt disappointed with the education system, which advocated for teaching in the school houses and at the school master; failing to notice that learning can occur in natural settings and hence he sought to carry out these educational principles in learners. Education is leads to constructing of knowledge as well as transmiting it (Thoreau 500). Using his acquired education at Harvard, he envisioned better ways in which learning could occur without the necessary classroom setting. The value of education is further revealed by looking at how teaching and learning is usually done and searching for ways to improve it, and to gain better results.
The value of education is in its ability to encourage advancement both career-wise and socially through networking. Educated young fellows from both middle class and working class backgrounds develop a new format for socialization, often they adjust and compromise from the ingrained norms. For instance, it may disgust a straddler to think of a networking dinner at his / her home, and yet in developing societies this is a common practice for career advancement (Lubrano 113). The educated youths from blue-collar homes must adjust and swift from the idea of leaving work at work or the office, since family time is sacred; while those from white-collar homes come in with the notion that the entire family must take part in their sons’ or daughters’ career growth. Through experiences, these two groups have to find a working relationship and compromise on value system that they are used to and grew up with. It is this fact that lends credence to the value of education as a significant tool in making adjustments and compromises to create harmony both at work and at home.
Education encourages and advises all to live a tolerant and moderate life. Learning and looking through the culture, philosophies and values of other people, we learn to appreciate and accept their ways of lives. Man is a social being and easily adapts elements from other beings hence creating harmony in our world. By an individual having inert information about others, a middle ground will be sort and found creating peace between families and communities. Each person then lives as they are, yet they are considerate and stay open to the way of life of others in their communities and in society.
Our acquired knowledge further enhances the value of preserving nature for purposes of feeding us as well as a learning tool. Learning according to Thoreau (263) is in full blast when we live within nature. He noted that earth is not about dead history and stratum like leaves of book that is studied by geologists but it is rather a living poetry, speaking of animal and plant life. We benefit from nature through foods that fill our stomachs, leaves, barks and roots that once uprooted sooth and heal our bodies and refresh us through its flowers and fruits (Thoreau 264).
Thoreau in his readings emphasized the value of education as simplicity in life, renouncing wealth as major solutions to societal problems, and devotion to truth and learning. He mentioned that “reading all accounts will enable the human race to solve all its problems through practical application of the knowledge,” (Thoreau 26-27). In applying all our acquired knowledgeable treasures, we can unite the societies by solving their problems. Lubrano (83) says, education is our solution to the many rifts and strives we have among societal members. And even in the present day, the most educated societies are also the most developed, having used their knowledge to solve their challenges and seek advanced answers to queries.
Our views of the world changes with our backgrounds, those from blue-collar histories see the world differently as their perspective is more family oriented as opposed to white-collar people who are more individualistic in their approach; and yet through these differences we learn to live in harmony, embracing each other and forging together as one to make a difference in our world. All these is possible through education which is the unifying factor because its learners from all walks of life.

Works Cited
Lubrano, Alfred. Limbo: Blue-collar roots, white-collar dreams. John Wiley & Sons, 2004.
Sattelmeyer, Robert. Thoreau’s Reading: A Study in Intellectual History with Bibliographical Catalogue. Princeton University Press, 2014.
Thoreau, Henry David. Huckleberries. ICON Group International, 1970.