Personal Essay: Does Education Shape Our Identity?

Improved Essays
It is often disputed as to whether our education shapes our identity. Education itself does not shape identity, but friends, foes, and exposure to different interests all play a role in shaping one’s identity. Friends grow up with us, offering moral support and adding little touches to our personalities. Foes, on the other hand, can have negative impacts on our beings. It’s these negative experiences, however, that shape our present identities. The varying interests of our peers that we are surrounded by throughout school can inspire us to pursue certain hobbies. It’s these factors that influence our identities.
A key factor to human development and interaction is grouping, especially with friendships. Schools are swarming with people. Out
…show more content…
Personally, a large part of my identity revolves around my interests. One of my main hobbies is drawing. I was inspired to draw, not from my education, but from seeing one of my peers draw. I remember that peer being an excellent artist at a young age. I set out to improve my drawing skills and teach myself how to draw. In my education, art classes were not available until middle school, so I had to improve on my own. We also all go through phases throughout our life. In middle school, I remember being exposed to the craze of Silly Bandz. In order to follow the trend, everyone littered their arms with the colored bracelets. If I wouldn’t have been in this school environment, I probably would have ignored Silly Bandz all together. However, because my peers were into this fad, I became entranced in it as well. I also remember the popularity of The Hunger Games. Due to seeing my peers reading the books, I picked up the books myself and read them. I also watched the movies because all my peers were talking about them. Different fads seem to come with every generation.
Education takes up a large portion of our lives. Despite its large size, it is not the major playing factor in our identities. Education only provides an environment that include some factors that contribute to our identities. Humans are social beings, so it is no surprise that social entities influence us. Factors such as friends, foes,

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    In 2010 I was a person who was unsure about all the aspects of my life. I felt as if life had no meaning to it. I was afraid of what the future held for me due to the fact that it never seemed to be clear to me. I had no education goals whatsoever, I was extremely unmotivated to succeed in life. I never valued anything that I had, that being the love my family and friends gave me and all the personal belongings that my parents provided me with.…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Jared Korotzer Professor Grady Writing 1 31 October 2014 For School In John Taylor Gatto’s essay, “Against School,” Gatto draws on his extensive experience as a teacher to argue that the American public education system does not exist to make students their personal best, but rather aims to create a large, manipulable work force incapable of challenging its government. This, he argues, is achieved by forcing authority on students from a young age, and then proceeding to breed each student for his or her specific role in society. While “Against School” does present an intriguing view of the modern education system, Gatto severely underestimates the value of the academic and social skills students learn by attending school.…

    • 1350 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Texts Set Assignment Text Name: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros What it's about: Chapter 4 focuses on Esperanza reflecting on her name. During the process, she reveals “marks” of her identity: how she identifies herself, what she values, where her family is from, and other topics that are relevant to this project. She talks about how she does not like her name and that others could pronounce it correctly.…

    • 936 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Social class is a major determining factor of accomplishment in most educational, employment and social arenas. Social class is currently still one of the best predictors of who will achieve success, prosperity and social status, yet class is difficult to define and discern/distinguish. We examine it empirically only through its consequences our outcome. Education closely influences personal and social development in the technical, economic spheres, and wider political arenas of emancipation and democracy.…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One of the most defining moments of one’s life is when one discovers who they truly are inside. Growing up, the influences of friends and family are clearly marked on one’s beliefs, ideals, and moral standards, whether they want to believe it or not. The desire to fit in is what pushes many people to do things they may not be comfortable with or believe in themselves; this is alternately called peer pressure. However, even through moments of weakness and the struggle to belong, one shapes and forms their own identity simply by knowing what they do and do not believe in.…

    • 1488 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Victoria Gaston Biography

    • 1518 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Life of Victoria Gaston Everyone has his or her own story to tell, and I’m going to tell you about mine. Living in the life of Victoria Rose Gaston can have its struggles, but it also has some amazing, life changing moments too. It can range from breaking your arm, pinky, and elbow to traveling to a third world country for a mission trip. No matter what crazy things have happened in my life, it has helped to shape me into the person I am today. From my early life to adolescence my life has been one heck of a ride, and I’m hoping that even my future will hold some great things for me.…

    • 1518 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Building a sense of identity can be very challenging as a young person with all the different types of influences you come in contact with. However, your identity plays an important role in…

    • 825 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Our identity is shaped by positive and negative experiences. Our identity is the distinguishing character or personality of an individual. It is a dynamic concept having fragments added and removed. This is demonstrated in Wayne Blair “The Sapphires”, Gary Cooper “Brown-Skinned Child”, The Twenty one pilots “Stressed out” and in every one’s life.…

    • 255 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Discovering who we really are and what we are all about is a life-long process. Our search for our identity and what defines who we are is a puzzle consisting of many different pieces. Identity is defined as our self-portrait that is made up of multiple components, including our chosen career path, spiritual beliefs, sexual orientation, marital status, personality traits and characteristics, body image, and even where we live and where we are from. Although one’s identity is shaped my a multitude of factors, family and peer influences play a huge roll in an adolescent finding and fine tuning their personal identity.…

    • 1093 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sincere Selfhood It is fair to say that in today’s day and age our identity is often defined by rather shallow attributes such as name, age, or appearance. A common example would be the basic information, like height, weight, and home address that is required on a driver’s license. With that said, one could make the argument that these everyday societal formalities and public perceptions, which are mostly out of our control, do make up our full identity. However, identity is not something given or a means by which people are automatically entitled, instead true identity is earned through one’s actions and character in scenarios of hardship and uncertainty.…

    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Identity, is unique sign based on a person’s personality and characteristic that makes people commemorate him. The modern culture is responsible for people’s identity and the sense of worth. Fashion decides what people have in common, what people hated. Many factors result in the teenagers; Pressures, friends, or how the society treats them. For me, self position and capabilities have a significant effect that deviates from other influences.…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Identity and its flexibility Everyday our minds change and develop. One will go through a series of life altering events, and not only will these events be life changing, but they will be identity changing as well. Ones identity is flexible and changes constantly. Change can be slight or change can be major, but identity is never fixed.…

    • 1005 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In all of my time of attending Homedale Middle School, I have witnessed many groups of students more increasingly each year. I supposed that each year I become more aware and observant of the life around me--specifically, others’ lives. Some cliques I see only outside, playing football or staying far out into the fields. But others I see every day, chatting in class, eating together at lunch, or even rough-housing in the hallways between periods, which causes chaos for everyone else and blocks our path to class. Even though this is the case, it is easier to identify certain types of groups at lunch.…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Comparatively, African American children are exponentially exposed to teachers who do not culturally mirror them. Various studies show that non-white students undergo a cultural mismatch of teacher to student at a higher rate than white students. The Achievement gap in standardized test scores shows a consistent and pervasive disparity between the scholastic success of African American students and that of white students. Researchers found that low expectations and racial bias are the result of indifference in teacher efficacy toward students racially unlike themselves. Scholars further agree that this apathy directly impacts student self-esteem and self-efficacy, thus provoking the theory of ethnic matching.…

    • 1645 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It's clear that most of our identity is shaped by the environment that we are in. We are most influenced by our family, friends, and school. Our family shapes our identify in how our behaviors are, depending on how our parents have raised us. Friends shape us by the choices of friends that we associate ourselves with. Friends tend to have a big influence in our identity.…

    • 1161 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays