The Importance of Self Education

The idea of self-education relating to political and social concepts is very intimidating, at least it was for me. I would overhear my friends having conversations about the growing conflicts and I would shut my brain off because I wanted nothing to do with it. 

I thought, “I'm only a teenager, it isn’t happening here so these things don’t matter to me”. It took me months before one day I realized that social and political issues, regardless where they’re happening, do matter to me. 

Once we turn 18, all of these things begin to slap us in the face. We pay taxes that fund programs we may or may not agree with, we get a say in what our government does or doesn’t do, and when we don’t understand or become aware of the issues going on we don’t get to develop our own opinion. Without an opinion we have no clue how to navigate and handle all the power given to others. If the power rests with the people, our people need to be educated.

Courses at PHS such as Government and Economics are designed to assist us in this learning process but the work still relies on us to listen and extend the learning outside of the classroom. Just because we are teens, it does not mean we don’t have a say. It just means we lack knowledge regarding such topics. Self-education in many topics is crucial to our development as teens. The ability to teach ourselves something is what we need to be a functioning person, so why stop when it comes to real world issues? 

What are the benefits of self-educating as a young adult you may ask?

1. Finding One's Voice: Understanding deeper topics, especially ongoing ones allow us to develop our own opinions. We learn how to voice concerns and emotions in a respectful and clear manner. This allows us to advocate for ourselves and others.

2. Develops Key Skills: Abilities like critical thinking, information analysis, and knowing how to distinguish fact from fiction is what is being practiced when we do our own research and take time into our own education.

3. Build Empathy: For many who believe that an issue is not important because it’s happening somewhere other than their homeland, once you begin to think of the world as a community, it forces you to want to learn about current issues regardless of where they are happening. Out there another girl or boy, woman or man has the same aspirations but is going through a crisis.

While we may not be able to solve every issue or problem in the world around us, knowing about them and educating ourselves help us to place confusion into thought and maybe even action.