Formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
Formal education has for many years been the most accepted way of delivering knowledge. The prompt suggests that this method of education has a restraining effect on the learner’s thoughts. In my opinion, the given statement is mostly true however, there is one point it does not consider.
For any system to succeed, stability is an important factor. A formal education gives students a pre-decided curriculum with fewer choices along the way. For example, if a student excels in Science, this is observed at a young age in school. Routine assessments and competition from peers motivate the student to work harder and better herself at Science. As she has maintained a good academic record, she finds it easier to get into a good college thus, securing her future. This demonstrates that a formal education increases the chances of students sticking to the path paved out for them by the system, rather than losing the way because of the freedom an informal education system may give them. However, the same system can have its own share of disadvantages.
Teachers and parents have many expectations from students to get into a reputed college. The competition for the same makes this an immensely stressful process. Even after getting in, weekly submissions and demanding subjects give students very less time to set aside for personal projects and hobbies. As a result, one tends to lose touch with their intuitive, creative side. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, famously dropped out of Harvard after his sophomore year, to build his infant social media platform into a multi-billion-dollar company. This illustrates perfectly that formal education can be physical and mentally draining, leaving little room for exploring.
It can also be argued that, formal education does not provide students with enough hands-on experience they need to succeed in the real world. Instead, in most countries high weightage is given only to theoretical examinations. For example, if a person is taught about parts of a car in a classroom with a presentation and books, he understands the principles behind its working. However, as he will never fully understand the working of a car until he is presented the opportunity to drive one. Moreover, dull methods of teaching, may cause him to lose interest. Thus, formal education constricts students to a limited aspect of a subject.
It can be concluded that, formal education is a complex issue with its own upsides and downsides. For students, freedom and experiences are as important as curriculum and focus.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, however, if, may, moreover, so, thus, as for, for example, as a result, in my opinion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.5258426966 67% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.4196629213 64% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 14.8657303371 74% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 11.3162921348 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 32.0 33.0505617978 97% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 58.6224719101 90% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 12.9106741573 124% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2166.0 2235.4752809 97% => OK
No of words: 417.0 442.535393258 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.19424460432 5.05705443957 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5189133491 4.55969084622 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91059928487 2.79657885939 104% => OK
Unique words: 244.0 215.323595506 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.585131894484 0.4932671777 119% => OK
syllable_count: 666.9 704.065955056 95% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59117977528 101% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 6.24550561798 112% => OK
Article: 5.0 4.99550561798 100% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 3.10617977528 161% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.77640449438 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.38483146067 68% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 20.2370786517 119% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 23.0359550562 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 38.6894464149 60.3974514979 64% => OK
Chars per sentence: 90.25 118.986275619 76% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.375 23.4991977007 74% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.79166666667 5.21951772744 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 7.80617977528 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 10.2758426966 117% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 5.13820224719 97% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.83258426966 145% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.128151563342 0.243740707755 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0357582816865 0.0831039109588 43% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0329868181055 0.0758088955206 44% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0763213180325 0.150359130593 51% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0121602799043 0.0667264976115 18% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.7 14.1392134831 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.8420337079 111% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.1743820225 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.53 12.1639044944 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.02 8.38706741573 108% => OK
difficult_words: 120.0 100.480337079 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 11.8971910112 59% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.2143820225 78% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.7820224719 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 Out of 6
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.