<Author>EN</Author>
<Nationality>British</Nationality>
<Gender>Male</Gender>
<Age>31</Age>
<First language>English</First language>
<Other foreign languages in decreasing order of proficiency>French</Other foreign languages in decreasing order of proficiency>
<Last degree>MA</Last degree>
<Years of staying in China>MA</Years of staying in China>
<Topic>1</Topic>
Should we view education purely as a means to secure a job, or more broadly as a life-long learning process? Do we learn only within the confines of our formal education from childhood, through adolescence and onto adulthood, as the cases may be, or is our learning an ongoing, continual and unbroken process that starts from our birth and continues until our last breath, or perhaps beyond? Should we go with the dictionary definition of education as the process of teaching or leaning within a school or college, or consider that education can come from any individual, institution or incident throughout the course of a lifetime? There can surely be good reason for taking-up both sides of the argument, but I for one would tend to favor the latter.
Firstly, would not to take such a narrow view of education be dangerous and diminutive towards the process of education itself. Indeed, is a baby not trying to make sense of the World as soon as it spills out bloody and then screeching into the light of day? Does it not learn to crawl, to walk, to use a spoon to feed itself and to talk by examining the actions of others and listening to the world around it? The answer is yes, and I would argue that this learning should not be excluded. What we learn from the world around us at a young age and as children is extremely important as it molds our character and in such a way it must surely impact on our later formal education to a great extent. Thus, if we were to treat this later formal education as a completely different entity from our previous existence, as merely a means to secure employment, is it not likely that we would be missing something very important? Would we not be, in a way, fooling ourselves as to what is important?
Similarly, do we not learn our most valuable lessons outside of the confines of the classroom through our early years? And does this not continue after our formal education in the work that we choose to do and the decisions that we choose to make through life? Again, I would have to say yes. We learn much more about life - real life that is - away from the classroom than we do within it and this cannot be viewed as a separate entity from education. A child learns most of its social skills outside of school, for example, and these then become very much entwined within education and cannot be treated as alien. A child coming from a broken home who suffers abuse may well find it harder to get on well in school. Should we put this down purely to a lack of ability and write the child off as a no-hoper or take into account this social deficit? Surely something has to be done in an effort to accommodate the child; we have to take the broader view. 
While the argument may resonate with some that education is a means to gain employment, I find this attitude too narrow and limiting and would guard against it. There are few people who are able to set their minds on a career from a young age and stick to it. And even if you are able to do this are you not shutting off any number of doors, of possibilities, all for the sake of keeping one open? As we go through life we meet new people, we experience new things and we change. We learn from what we find good in other people, we learn from our own mistakes. What we thought was our ideal job through university can turn out to be our worst nightmare once we actually get around to doing it. Yes, education should not be viewed as just a depressing and debilitating preparatory period for the payroll. It should be about truth, about what we find interesting and about what we love along the way; it should be the journey we take through life.