Morning Reading:新东方背诵文2

02 Schooling and Education

It is commonly believed in United States that school is where people go to
get an education. Nevertheless, it has been said that today children
interrupt their education to go to school. The distinction between schooling
and education implied by this remark is important.

Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling.
Education knows no bounds. It can take place anywhere, whether in the shower
or in the job, whether in a kitchen or on a tractor. It includes both the
formal learning that takes place in schools and the whole universe of
informal learning. The agents of education can range from a revered
grandparent to the people debating politics on the radio, from a child to a
distinguished scientist. Whereas schooling has a certain predictability,
education quite often produces surprises. A chance conversation with a
stranger may lead a person to discover how little is known of other
religions. People are engaged in education from infancy on. Education, then,
is a very broad, inclusive term. It is a lifelong process, a process that
starts long before the start of school, and one that should be an integral
part of one’s entire life.

Schooling, on the other hand, is a specific, formalized process, whose
general pattern varies little from one setting to the next. Throughout a
country, children arrive at school at approximately the same time, take
assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do homework,
take exams, and so on. The slices of reality that are to be learned, whether
they are the alphabet or an understanding of the working of government, have
usually been limited by the boundaries of the subject being taught. For
example, high school students know that there not likely to find out in
their classes the truth about political problems in their communities or
what the newest filmmakers are experimenting with. There are definite
conditions surrounding the formalized process of schooling.