Education Debate: Beyond Vocational and Academic Paths

Educational attainment is essential to achieve because this brings satisfaction to our lives. From the articles that I have read, the topic of debate between anti-intellectualism and the vocational education has been raised. The first article entitled My Struggles With Anti-Intellectualism was written by Paul Stoller. He was a professor of anthropology courses and had been written 14 books with different kinds such as novels, ethnographies, and memoirs. On the other hand, the other article entitled What’s Wrong with Vocational School?, was written by Charles Murray dated last January 17, 2007 from the Wall Street Journal. He was an American political scientist and the very first who came to call the attention of the publication during the year 1984.

The point of view of the first article shows the essentials in achieving higher education in order to support the anti-intellectualism. However, the second’s article point of view supports that attainment has nothing to do between a degree completer and a vocational course. It has been said that vocational school was a stepping stone so as people could achieve their goal and mission in life. It has been said that skills really matters and not either between higher education and vocational.

Paul Stoller’s claim in his article was it is significant to fight the struggles about anti-intellectualism which pertains to the things that we can do through education. The problem here is that, we do believe that achieving a higher education is the solution in succeeding in life. Thus, we should avoid that thinking and continue to strive for the betterment of ourselves. As the author asserts “That’s why in the present it’s important to combat the anti-intellectualism of the public sphere and support enlightened higher education, a space where mentors, to borrow from one of my readers, don’t teach students what to think but show them how to think-a skill that prepares them for a productive life in the world, a skill that moves all of us forward” (Stoller 5).

In this statement, the author wants to enlighten the views of the public about how anti-intellectualism can be fought. What important here is, we do believe on ourselves and what we can do to accomplish our objective. Charle’s Murray main point of the argument in the article was to understand that vocational isn't a low educational attainment. He wants to convince his audiences and readers that there is nothing wrong in choosing vocational course as a learning method in college. As the author quoted from the article “Most students find college life to be lots of fun and that alone will keep the four-year institution overstocked for a long time. But, rightly understood, college is appropriate for a small minority of young adults-perhaps even a minority of the people who have IQs high enough that they could do college level work” (Murray 2007).

In this statement, the problem would be the thinking and being degraded by the four-year institution and other organization. From this statement, the author wants to show the relevance of a vocational course that can still perform college level work. however, Murray wants to raise his argument that taking vocational course does not stop the learning of a person once you have that perseverance to learn and achieve what you want to be. To conclude, there is no difference with higher education and vocational to a person who have determination.

The author of the article entitled My Struggles With Anti-Intellectualism showed evidences of personal experience in his article. In this way, the readers and audiences could feel the sincerity of the article which can convince them to agree in his claim. He used a rhetorical strategy of pathos wherein he appeals to the emotional aspect of the audiences. As he asserts in his script that, “What! There’s no money in that. You’re a dreamer” (Stoller 4). In this statement, it showed a conversation between him and her mother who argued with him about what he wants to do in life. Her mother exclaimed that his future will not be good and will not earn money as much as he wants.

The use of language here is a typical and common language which adheres to the conversation between the mother and son. On the other hand, the author of the article entitled What’s wrong with Vocational School raised his claim through giving statistics. As the author asserts that, “There is no magic point at which genuine college-level education becomes an option, but anything below an IQ of 110 is problematic” (Murray 7). From this statement, we can adhere about the claim of the author through giving facts and evidences, however, he lacks supporting details here which I think is insufficient to convince the readers. From the point of comparison, Paul Stoller used simple language which is clear and concise while Charles Murray gives information which is not appropriate to those beginners. I think that, there is no similarity here in terms of giving information of text because Stoller used a personal experience to convince his audiences while Murray gives his insight with statistics but insufficient because it has no supporting evidences.

The author differ in giving their claims because from Paul Stoller’s argument, he said that higher education is the key to succeed while Charles Murray go against the claim of Stoller that there is nothing wrong with vocational courses. Paul Stoller asserts that “That’s why in the present it’s important to combat the anti-intellectualism of the public sphere and support enlightened higher education, a space where mentors, to borrow from one of my readers, don’t teach students what to think but show them how to think – a skill that prepares them for a productive life in the world, a skill that moves all of us forward” (Stoller 5).

This supports his claim about the importance of achieving the higher education. However, Charles Murray asserts in his article that “People who go to college are not better or worse people than anyone else; they are merely different in certain interests and abilities. That is the way college should be seen.” (Murray 9). From this statement, the author wants to say that there is nothing wrong with vocational because students are different in their knowledge, skills, and abilities and this is what should be expect from the student not just the degree.

From the point of view raised with the two authors, I could say that Paul Stoller is more efficient that Charles Murray argument. This was because, he raised his claim and argument through giving a specific insight and example based on his personal experiences. I think that he was a living example and good example in his claim since he already gone through it. Other than this, he used simple, clear, and concise language in his article. His article is not boring to read and provides information in an organized manner compared to Charles Murray article. Thus, what is the most important here I think is to understand the essentials and importance of education regardless of whatever it is; even it is a higher education or a vocational course.

References

Stoller, P. (2012). My Struggles With Anti-Intellectualism. The Blog. Murray, C. (2007). What’s Wrong with Vocational School?, Wall Street Journal.