Matthew L. Sanders's Becoming A Learner: Distracting Conversations

In “Distracting Conversations,” a section of Matthew L. Sanders’s book Becoming a Learner: Realizing the Opportunity of Education, the author briefly analyzes different reasons people may have for going to college and contrasts those reasons with what he believes is the primary purpose of education in the United States. Amid his discussion of the primary purpose of education, Sanders asserts that college will prepare “people who will be able to be successful in whatever field of employment they choose.” While I agree with his statement, I have been conditioned like most all people to relate college to learning a set of skills, although I can appreciate that there is a deeper purpose that I may have difficulty accurately wording. Sanders states that the primary purpose of education in the United …show more content…
By expanding their mind and developing this sort of character, students are more likely to succeed in anything they wish to pursue. This sort of mental expansion requires students to see what Sanders brushes on when he states the importance of seeing college as more than professional training: if we focus on professional training, we “[generate] incorrect assumptions that cause you to overlook some of your most important learning experiences.” One of my “important learning experiences” took place in my AP Literature class. As far as I am aware, researching one aspect of Shakespeare’s life or work and then writing a ten page report about it is not directly applicable to the majority of jobs. When my class did this assignment, all of us hated it. It seemed like an impractical use of our time, and we couldn’t see how it would help us in our potential professions. This assignment, however, taught us general skills-- how to find trustworthy information, how to properly format a logical report, how to work