write three merits and demerits of Formal education
Answers
Answer:A great deal depends on your personality and the way in which you learn.
One of the great advantages of a formal education are that you will be credentialed and it will help you get a job. Degrees and credentials will also help you in a variety of situations where people care about your credentials. The difficulty of getting into some universities and the work required to graduate will signal status and character to many people.
University is also a great place to meet people and hopefully find mentors. You can also meet people and find mentors through working or other activities, but well designed universities are structured to help you find mentors.
The other advantage, which depends a great deal on your learning style, is that you are likely to learn useful things. Formal education is structured and there is a lot of evidence that traditional formal education isn’t the most effective way to learn for some people.
Most formal education systems focus on breaking knowledge and skills up into distinct disciplines, teaching in age segregated classes, teaching by lecturing and using text books, and measuring your success through tests. For “interest driven learners” who like to learn in the pursuit of a passion or interest, it is often easier to learn through doing projects. There is also evidence that learning through projects or doing things in the real world (see : Constructionism (learning theory) - Wikipedia ) is a better way to learn than text book learning. Finland and other countries are experimenting with eliminating grades and eliminating disciplines and teaching through projects.
At the Media Lab, we have a group called Life Long Kindergarten and we believe that “Creative Learning” is important and we focus on what we call the four Ps - Projects, Peers, Passion and Play.
Learning through doing, rather than learning through textbooks and lectures. Teaching each other rather than listening to an instructor. Following your passion rather than learning out of fear, anxiety or the need to please. Play - there is a lot of evidence that a state of play is very effective for creative thinking and shouldn’t be just during recess.
While I have dropped out of college twice, dropped out of a doctoral program once, got kicked out of kindergarten and never completed a degree past high school, I would still urge people to graduate and complete their degrees if possible. The degree can help open doors and provide opportunities. Any success that I’ve had is not because I’ve dropped out but despite the fact that I dropped out.
Having said that, if you have a burning passion or just HAVE to try something, taking a gap year or two to try it out might provide more context on top of which formal learning may be more readily applied.
Explanation: