In my preparation for this paper my biggest challenge was finding two people that had different educational backgrounds or two people that were significantly different in age to make a difference. I finally decided on my mother and my sister. My mother, who is 46, just finished her Bachelors of Science in nursing two years ago. My sister, who is 20, has decided not to go to school and continue her education. In the course of the interviews, there were times that I was well aware of what both of their answers would be, but they did manage to surprise me at times also.
I started of my interview by asking them what they thought about traditional education today, at the college and high school level. My mother said that she is amazed how much the high schools focus on getting a student ready for college. She said that when she went to high school they focused more on life studies then college prep classes. That being able to support yourself financially and to get a job as soon as you left high school was focused on more then what was needed to continue your education. My sister agreed that the high schools of today focus a great deal on getting a student ready for college. She feels
I then asked them how today’s computer technology and other developments influenced learning. I expected my sister to say that computers where an absolute must have but she surprised me. She said that she felt that having computers has made it too easy for students today and that a computer allows people to be lazy. She then told me that she knew of people in school who had gotten a failing grade on a paper because they had hand written it and not typed it up on a computer. My mom on the other hand couldn’t say enough good things about computer technology. She said that without computer technology she is not sure if she would have made it through college or not. With having a full time job and going to school at night she was hardly ever able to get to the library to get the information that she would need to do a paper or report. The development of the Internet was her savior.
that even though high schools offer the vocational programs that they still need to focus equally on the college prep courses and the vocational courses.
Finally I came to the important question. I asked them if they believed that a college education was important and why or why not. It didn’t take either one of them very long to answer. My mother believes that the only way to get ahead in today’s society is to have a college degree. She said that you could only go so far with out a college degree and then all the doors get closed in your face and that the days of working your way up the ladder are over. Employers don’t want to have to take the time to train so
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