I'm only 21 years old. I have not even gotten myself half way through school yet (graduate school included) but today I found myself thinking about what happens to many people after they finish school...once they stop learning.
I can't even picture myself ending my education! I mean, that is what I have been doing all my life. For the majority of my life I have been able to identify myself as a student...learning has been my job for years.
But what happens to most people after they finish whatever level of education they are striving to finish? Be it high school, college, technical school, grad school, whatever. What do they do after they are done?
I think that I would be extremely sad to quit learning. A lot of adults don't however. A lot of adults finish school and then they are done and that's it.
I can't picture that.
I work in a hospital and I am the youngest member of my department....by a lot. In fact the funny thing is the next youngest person in my department is my mother! haha :) And she is 26 years old than I am.
So little to say, I work with a lot of adults and I have come to notice something that really depresses me. Now this is in NO WAY an all inclusive statement but I have noticed that a lot of the adults that I work with don't seem very intelligent.
Now I know that sounds awful but let me explain. It's not that they are not perfectly intelligent people or that they lack an ability to be intelligent it is, in my opinion, that some of them have let their educations slide away from them.
And it is such a crying shame in my eyes! People just seem to get so bogged down in this fast-paced, hectic time that we live in. They find a job, they get into a rountine and in a lot of cases this routine doesn't call for them to learn new information and allows for their already aquired information to slip away. A lot of times we find ourselves just doing what it takes to get by and that is so sad!
We have a new computer system here where I work. We are just kind of getitng it installed and training on it right now and we go live on it on Thursday (wish me luck!) I wizzed through the training and the tests and that was that. However, some of my co workers really struggled on the tests. Now these are just paper and pencil regular tests with really simple questions and common sense answers....
an example: What are you supposed to do in the case that there is an external disaster and you are called in to work?
A. Plan to bring your children in with you
B. Plan out everything you need to get in case of a disaster but don't actually buy it until one really looks to occur
C. Be prepared. Have emergency supplies at your house so that your children will have everything that they need.
D. Just leave and hope somebody else takes care of your children.
Now I don't know. Maybe it is just me or does this seem like a pretty easy answer? Time and time again however I saw my co-workers struggling. They have trouble reading the answers, keeping them straight in their minds, keeping track of what they are saying , etc...
I don't know but in my opinion its kind of like : Your brain: Use it or lose it!
I just see a bunch of cases where people just become their routines and let their higher functioning abilities take a snooze. And its sad. These people are smart and I wonder if they know how great continued education is and what they are missing out on.
I know I am only 21 years old...I still have a lot of life to learn from. But I do think that I have one piece of advice that everybody should take and beleive in.
Never stop learning.
Never just become a routine.
Never let your hard earned education slide from you.
Some of the smartest people I have ever met are the ones that, no matter what grade they got through in school, still continue to read.
That's all you have to do.
Just keep reading! :)
