The power of my education was not the name of the school. Not everyone knows most small private school, nor where they are located. Most people are aware of the University of Texas or Texas A&M. You can find an aggie almost anywhere.
College, especially a popular one, is usually the preferred course of life amongst most people. Lots of people go to college because they know it will lead to greater chances of a higher paying job. However, college is not that straight forward anymore.
Today in our tense political climate, Americans are getting onto the universities for subjects taught in their schools. Colleges are receiving criticisms against parents and students for the quality of education, and if they can even use it in the real world anymore.
A poll done in 2019 by the Pew Research Center show that only half of Americans believe that universities are having a positive effect on the country. Additionally, 61% of Americans thought that the University was headed in the wrong direction.
59% of adults prescribed that colleges leaned one way politically, and 47% of those adults thought this was a major problem. In 2019 only half of American adults surveyed thought that the University was making a positive impact in the Nation. That is a decrease in recent years.
In today’s culture wars, we are finding many institutions influencing American’s political opinion. You cannot escape it anymore. The question of free speech is debated if it’s allowed in the Universities.
In the 2020 Free Speech Ranking “Fully 60% of students reported feeling that they could not express an opinion because of how students, a professor, or their administration would respond.”
Our politics tell us that to disagree with one another means we are enemies. Positionally, universities are taking a particular stance, and expecting both of the students and faculty to do the same.
However, that is not what I faced at the Guy D. Newman Honors Academy. At Howard Payne University, I got to be an individual. I was a name and I had a personality, and so did my professors.
When I stepped in to my first government classes, there was not a professor who sat me down and told me, “this is what you need to think” or “this is what you need to believe.”
The professors didn’t want to conform me to the same as everybody else. They wanted me to be who I was and allow me to grow intellectually and in my personality. The experience at a small private school was not having an ideology pressed upon me, nor was it being just a number in a room.
My time at Howard Payne University was being on a journey to find myself in the world, with mentors around me. Having the freedom to express myself, and being exposed to different ideas, allowed me to discover what I was passionate about. No one forced me to think or believe anything.
My professors guided me and helped me comprehend the different ideas of philosophers, thinkers, and historical events that have developed the world and designed society. In the face of it all, we were taught how to ask great questions towards them. My skills in critical thinking, collaboration, brainstorming, and problem-solving increased.
Not only that, but I was doing it with people whom I do not share the same ideology. We discussed multiple hot topic issues, all openly in the classroom and what we thought of them. There was nothing to be afraid of; no ideas to cower in fear from. We talked, debated, and I either became more solidified, or refined, what I thought to be correct.
The power of my small private school is that it helped me find my way, rather than just tell me what to believe. I got to be more of who I was. That’s what the college experience should be about.
[Story by Jacob Lehrer]