Education

Education: SWEDEN VS U.S.A

“Thomas Jefferson said in a democracy people vote and choose their rulers and that means you have to learn to read and write, you have to learn enough of the foundation of education to be a citizen”.

    In both readings, education plays a key role, from a country like the United States and Sweden. But what set them apart is how far they have come to their development in education. In America school was very different compared to Sweden. In America an individual needed to be educated to be considered a citizen, the reason is because when it comes to choosing a leader, for example, a president or a mayor, etc.. that person would be able to understand the role that leader is intended to apply or changes they are intended to do, this would allow those individuals to have a better understanding, or in other words a stronger point of view, not only that, it will allow the country to have a better future.
America wanted to have a brighter future so they created free public schools where your education is depended on your social status. Public Schools was only benefiting the whites, while the blacks and the Native Americans were struggling to get a proper education.

      From Thomas Jefferson Perspective, education was only to be offered to white males, while only three years for female but none to the slaves. In my opinion, I think Jefferson didn’t want women to have the same amount of education as men because he doesn’t want them to feel or be more superior to men. He wants them to be at a point where they can be controlled. The slaves on the other hand which wasn't proposed to get educated because he feared of them becoming smarter, brighter, powerful and also part of society. “Knowledge is power”, so without knowledge, the slaves will be weak in the mind and always relying on their masters for guidance. But with education, the slaves could have gain confidence and breaks down barriers to opportunity. Education would have open the door for a better life, a better future.

       While America is trying to tackle all of these conflicts at once, Sweden, on the other hand, is vastly creating more schools. Sweden main focus was to have has many schools as possible so every citizen can be educated. This allows the country to evolve not only in education but in the country as a whole.

       Jefferson opinion about having educated individuals was a very good idea but I disagreed with his decision where he specified who get to be educated. Education in Sweden was developing more rapidly than America’s because they didn’t have to worry about a large number of immigrants coming to their country. If they had faced the same conflicts as America, the education system or structure could have been different.