Some people believe that the purpose of education is to free the mind and the spirit. Others believe that formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free.Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely alig

Essay topics:

Some people believe that the purpose of education is to free the mind and the spirit. Others believe that formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free.

Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.

This topic raises the controversial issue of whether formal education bolster or restrain our minds and spirits. Indisputably, education fails in its purpose when it is excessively based on inflexibility and rigidity and when students are required to learn topics by heart instead of really understanding them. Nevertheless, nowadays this is less likely to happen, and education is a precious tool which we should regard as a gift. Hence, I generally disagree with the view according to which formal education could hinder the freedom of our minds and spirits and would argue that education should be seen as a priceless gift.

One major point that induces me to believe that education frees the mind and the soul stems from the fact that without education our thoughts are severely limited. Indeed, education can actually provide us with the right tools and methods to tackle a problem and to critically discuss a view when is proposed to us. To illustrate, let us look at the following example. When Einstein, back in 1905, formulates the concept of the special relativity, based his entire reasoning on a mental experiment. Indeed, he thought what would have been the consequences to run at the speed of the light. Now, of course it is not thanks to education that he had this thought but thanks to education he had translated his thought into mathematical terms. Thanks to the discoveries of Einstein we can use daily the GPS or other electronic devices. Therefore, it is undeniable that education has helped Einstein to solve his problem and frees our lives by annoying problems which can be easily tackle by some modern technologies. Therefore, education clearly frees our mind and our spirits because it enables us to tackle problems and to propone different solution, but most notably to, as Einstein has done, stimulate progress in our society. In this term, education makes us more free. On the other hand, if Einstein would not have been educated, his thought about the speed of the light would have just remained a thought because he would have not had enough knowledge to properly translate that thought into mathematics.

Furthermore, education provides us with invaluable tools to critically accept or refuse an opinion or a point of view. Specifically, consider the following problem that is particularly widespread nowadays: “fake news’”. Indeed, fake news are currently popular on the web, for instance on Facebook. But, where is the link between the importance of education to free our minds and fake news? Thanks to formal education at school we learn to critically evaluate any assertion that is presented to us. For instance, during a history exam we can evaluate the truth of a statement which cited that the first world war has begun in 1900. Of course, this is not true, and we are able to do so because education has provided us with both the knowledge and the tools to say so. By contrast, without formal education we could be more inclined to uncritically accept each statement prosed to us, and this is exactly what happens when we consider as true some fake news on the web without verify their validity.
On the other hand, those who argue that formal education restrains our mind and spirits instead of set them free, they are actually misperceiving and mistaking formal education with excessive rigidity. Indeed, formal education can have negative effects on us but just in very few occasions. Suppose to live in a nation where the leader of it is a dictator. In this case, the latter will impose some specific topics, which praise the tyranny, to be taught at schools to students. Of course, this could be one case in which formal education actually hinders the freedom of our minds. But, there is one implicit assumption in this reasoning which weakens the conclusion. Indeed, education under tyranny, for instance during Nazism, cannot be considered as education according to its definition. In fact, in this extreme case education is viewed as a tool to install wrong ideas into young students and not as a way to teach them something new.

In conclusion, in all the situations presented above, starting from Einstein to education under tyranny, an educated person would have been several advantages thanks to his formal education compared to another person who disregards education because of its supposed negative effects on the freedom of minds and spirits.

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Average: 6.6 (1 vote)
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Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, furthermore, hence, if, look, nevertheless, really, so, therefore, for instance, in conclusion, in fact, of course, on the other hand

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.5258426966 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.4196629213 145% => OK
Conjunction : 27.0 14.8657303371 182% => OK
Relative clauses : 27.0 11.3162921348 239% => Less relative clauses wanted (maybe 'which' is over used).
Pronoun: 73.0 33.0505617978 221% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 104.0 58.6224719101 177% => OK
Nominalization: 39.0 12.9106741573 302% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3693.0 2235.4752809 165% => OK
No of words: 732.0 442.535393258 165% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.04508196721 5.05705443957 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.20149002853 4.55969084622 114% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76260281347 2.79657885939 99% => OK
Unique words: 327.0 215.323595506 152% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.446721311475 0.4932671777 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1158.3 704.065955056 165% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59117977528 101% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 6.24550561798 144% => OK
Article: 2.0 4.99550561798 40% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 3.10617977528 97% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.77640449438 225% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 16.0 4.38483146067 365% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 32.0 20.2370786517 158% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 23.0359550562 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.1801985333 60.3974514979 98% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.40625 118.986275619 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.875 23.4991977007 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.84375 5.21951772744 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 7.80617977528 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 10.2758426966 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 5.13820224719 253% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.83258426966 83% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.330202633662 0.243740707755 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0909206513395 0.0831039109588 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0821258653513 0.0758088955206 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.204922743115 0.150359130593 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0623016607341 0.0667264976115 93% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.1392134831 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.8420337079 101% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.1743820225 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.31 12.1639044944 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.03 8.38706741573 96% => OK
difficult_words: 153.0 100.480337079 152% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 16.0 11.8971910112 134% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.2143820225 96% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.7820224719 102% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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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.