TOPIC: "It is often asserted that the purpose of education is to free the mind and the spirit. In reality, however, formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free."
Shared a belief that coming generation are the brick layers of futurusitic human mension, therefore, education, along with human being's evolution, has always been placed siginificant emphasis upon. I agree with the speaker's claim that education's aim is to set free students' minds, but formal education does not, as the speaker alleges, limit their spirits.
To begin with, in the early age of children's education, restrain, to some extents, must be put into practise to help students establish correct value system. People are born with "why"s and "how"s, because to ask and query is one of the human nature and they are just like a piece of white paper which can be drawed by every kind of thoughts. As a result, formal education especially the elementary education, must give them some rules and regulations in order to protect them from evil impulses from the society. Teachers and parents should tell them what is right and what is not, even punish them at the moment when they commit a same fallocy again and again, such as breaking neighbour's window for pleasure. It seems like restrictions, which put childern only think and act inside a small sphere, but it does lend a guarantee for students' further studies.
Moreover, with students growing up, more and more limitation appear in their academic learning, which provide them with efficient basis rather than inpendments. For example, in the field of physics, it is the famous Newton's Three Laws that always working to indicate the relationship between objects. Students will find it helpful in solving every problem and even come up with new inventions but not no break it down, because it is the fundamental principles of the subjects. When it comes to mathmetics, the fundation of most scientic areas, it is always the case. The rules of adding and plusing, transformation from digital numbers to october numbers, the calculating of the area of a triangle, and with forth, every thing is fulfiled with equations and axioms and restrictions. Can we say they ruin the creativity of students? Absolutely no and they are excellent tools for students to free their minds, pursuing methods for harder problems.
In addtion, education today, especially the advanced education, has attached great importance on setting free students' minds and spirits. In most universities and colleges, even some of the senior and junior schools, students are permitted to choose subjects they are interested in. It is well known that an old saying goes like this ( and I paraphrase,) "Interest is the best teacher." They learn what they love, in the way they prefer. And the society always give education an upmost place to improve and promote. Millions of fundings have been cast onto schools to advance their facilities and libraries for students to experiment on or use. Students can greatly enhance their practising skills and receive sealike knowledge from books thus instil them with a sense of creativity, which broaden their eyes and minds. Futhermore, various types of activities now also have done well in setting free students' minds. Discussions and debates over a current nationwide problem, exhibits for students displaying their own inventions, serve as an intern in the summer vacation in a company or a factory, all of these can not only prepare our children for their future jobs, but also, and more, give them fresh opinions and ideas from different people and new areas, which will assist them develop own new spirits.
To conclude, education is really designed to free the mind and spirit, and it works. Many restrictions in it are just for a better freedom for students. We should form a balanced view towards this assertion and at the same time freeing them, limiting them from falling into violating laws or harming the society.