HOW ‘GOING TO SCHOOL’ IS DIFFERENT FROM BEING ‘EDUCATED’

Hundreds of Millions of high school graduates seek admission into higher institutions yearly. In Nigeria, everyone wants to go to school, get a degree so they can get a good job. The advantage of going to school is advertised more than the advantages of being educated. When most schools place advert, all they need is students to pay fees so they can be enriched; only few schools wants students to be educated.

THE DEFINITION

You can go to school without being educated; YET you can be educated without going to school. What actually is going to school? What does being educated mean? You know the difference?  If you go to school, chances are you’ll get a degree. No one goes to school without being awarded a certificate. To get a degree in school is simple: follow the school’s rules properly.

“There is no value in degree but in deliveries” Bishop Oyedepo

While you don’t get a paper for being educated, education makes you unique, provides you with the ability to develop your potential and gives you opportunities to release your greatness. Education affects your mind. It presents you with challenges which pull out the best in you.

THE IRONY

Educated people talk less of their degree; people that ‘go to school’ talk more, because that is the only thing they have in the world. Their success is tied down to their certificates. That is why they keep moving from first degree to seventh degree to protect their job and get high pay-checks. If you want to harm them, hide their certificate; if you want to kill them, burn it.

Educated people know they can do without their certificate. Rarely will they talk about the paper they got, that is, if they even have it. Their success does not rely on the paper; loss of certificate does not render them useless. They know that what they have in them is bigger that what the certificate can do to them.

REAL LIFE

Life does not respect people that ‘go to school’. As a matter of fact, you can have a Ph.D in physics and still work for the educated. Life does not question your degree; it doesn’t test your certificate.

At every point, a graduate will always want to make sure the certificate obtained was not a waste of time and resources. They always want to work, or, as they put it, get a good job. This will always make them work for people, get employed and help others build their dreams, instead of building theirs.

People that ‘go to school’ fear to face real life. They take solace often.  They are afraid to fail and are scared of the next risk. While the lived under the succour of their parent or guardian and under the coverage of ‘the fresh graduate phenomenon’, all they need at that point is a saviour. Get them a job, they will never forget you; tell them to break out and start their life, they’ll hate you for life.

Educated people do not only think differently from people that ‘go to school’; they have this self-believe, self-concept and self-worth generated within them. They are sure of themselves and can distinguish exactly what they can do and what they can’t.  While facing reality, their muscles are strengthened in the challenges; they are happy trying and failing and trying again. Educated people are courageous and optimistic. Other than waiting for a saviour, a miracle worker or a saviour, they become one.

To educated people, they are the ‘saviour’ the people are praying for. Taking responsibility for their fate becomes normal; nobody takes the blame for them. They know they are responsible for their failures or successes, after all no one is ready to take the blame for them.

THE COMPARISON

These two people may be students. However, what they study differs. While one may spend 3 years or more studying the ‘effect’, the other studies the ‘cause’. Educated people understand that: to every law of motion, there is always an ‘Isaac Newton and his beliefs’ behind it.  Instead of just memorizing the laws, educated people study Isaac Newton, his beliefs and what led to the cause of the establishment of his principles (otherwise called laws).

This in-depth research of causes of actions makes them work on the causes or initiate a ‘cause’ themselves. They don’t just talk about changes but desire to make things change. Educated people always want to cause the change they so desire. The others are happy about how things are, the changes in nature, life, technology and in the environment, but never a time will they ask about the ‘why and how’, the cause of the happenings, all they are happy about is the ‘wonder’, the effect.

THE DIFFERENCE

The major difference is how they think! Our thoughts affect our beliefs, our beliefs affect our actions, our actions affect our results. People that ‘go to school’ want to be like the educated, but they don’t want to pay the price. They are scared of losing their comfort in the process.

Education makes you discover yourself. Immediately this happens, you are ready to walk out of what is keeping you in bondage, be it school or job. For instance, an educated man can quit his job or school to start something he is ready to die for –pursuing his dreams. People that ‘go to school’ don’t have this gut; the paper and pay-check are far more important than fulfilling destiny.

However, not everyone that quit school or job really ‘succeeds’ almost immediately, but they enjoy happiness fighting the course the put in for. They are comfortable in the midst of uncertainties. In fact, what gives them comfort is their zeal and self-believe. They have the passion to get it done and not relax. To the educated, taking risk is not only what they ‘know about’, it is what they do. This people believe in breaking the limit set by others, moving past what people called ‘comfort zone’.

In school, they may not be the ‘nerds’, with a first class at the end of their college stay. People that ‘go to school’ are concerned about this. Though educated people know that their CGPA is important, they know that a good CGPA is a result of a ‘cause’ set in motion. They understand that a good CGPA does not guarantee real-life success.

School teaches you how to remember stuff; the system works more on your memory. In fact, to ascertain whether you’re a good student, school test your ability to remember what you were taught. The educated know that life is not to be lived in the past; they work more on the present, hence recreating a future. They let go of the past, because, on the whole, the rules may change.  The educated may not remember the past, but can change today to create a new tomorrow – this is what most schools don’t care about.

THE ACTION

Change your thinking, change your life! It is far better to be ‘educated’ than to ‘go to school’. Choose...

Ekemini Thompson