Most of formal education is a complete waste of time

Thank you for your response. For the sake of brevity, I’ll generalize classes into their overall categories (science, math, social studies, language arts, etc.) Now onto my arguments. My opponent’s claims seem to be centered around three main points. Memory loss of information is an overwhelmingly common occurrence, and it means that the education was a complete waste of time. If education is not useful in a job setting, it is a complete waste of time. Education can be acquired online. The main problem with his arguments is that it only looks at the explicit value of education. It fails to look at the resultant improvements to the human character. This will be explained more in my further refutations.1. Memory loss of information is an overwhelmingly common occurrence, and it means that the education was a complete waste of time. Firstly, my opponent has not proven that memory loss of information learned in schools is an overwhelmingly common occurrence. His evidence has been entirely anecdotal, relying purely on personal experience and “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader” to prove his point, and this is hardly sufficient information. Secondly, even if we assume memory loss to be true, the main value from education is not the information, but rather, the skills that come with the information. In language arts and social studies, you are often required to research new information and write papers on those, which not only teaches research skills, but also writing skills, and this ability can be useful in reports that will inevitably be required from an individual in a desk job, persuasive argumentation, or journalism, among other applications. The main value of math classes is not the information and the equations that are taught, but the problem-solving skills that are gained from the class. Similarly, science classes are not important for the specific information that is learned, but rather a more general understanding of the world around us, increased problem solving skills, and experimentation ability. Even if my opponent’s memory loss statement is assumed to be true, in formal education, the information learned is one of the least important factors. The skills and understanding gained from the education are the truly valuable part. 2. If education is not useful in a job setting, it is a complete waste of time. I have shown already that formal education is generally useful in work settings. That being said, here are some uses of formal education that aren’t directly in a job setting: Intelligent conversations with others Critical thinking abilities Aids the individual in directing personal research Helps students to realize what job they want Helping a person to be overall more knowledgeable. P.E. classes help individuals to become healthier. Keeps the mind sharp for many more years, rather than just calling it good at “the earliest of grades” 3. Education can be acquired online It is true that facts can be learned or memorized through Google. However, Google is utilized best as a supplement to formal education, as not having the formal education curriculum would leave the students without direction. Though the students may find some information that they are truly passionate about, formal education helps to guide them to that information they choose to research, and without the formal education, they will have a much less rounded education. My opponent then claims, “Thousands of facts that schools try to impose on us that we will forget are right here on the internet.” While it is true that facts can often be found on the Internet, it completely ignores the skills that are learned through formal education, of which I have already outlined some. Also, this assumes that the memory loss factor is complete, which my opponent has yet to prove. Countering Specific Examples “Learning to read and read well with a good vocabulary is highly important for anything you pursue in life.” This is true, so why wouldn’t it be important to continue practice through high school and college? One is hardly going to acquire a high level vocabulary from just early grade education. “Temporary memorization is not valuable in one’s life.” The ability to quickly study and memorize information, even if the memorization is short-lived, is still a valuable skill. Some jobs where that would be useful would be waiting, acting, working as a studio musician, being a flight attendants, and any profession where remembering names would be useful. “Let’s take sentence diagramming for example…What value does it have?” Sentence diagramming is an exercise in critical thinking. With sentence diagramming, the student has to critically analyze the sentence and try to decide, based on their previous knowledge on parts of the sentence, how to describe the sentence, its parts, and how it works. Like many parts of formal education, what is important is the skills that are learned from it, not the information itself. “The one advantage of a degree is that it GETS you the job” This is true. The college degree helps the individual to get the job, and the college degree is the show that someone got a complete formal education. Since employers value a formal education, the education has a value in the job market. “Why would an accountant need to have serious math skills?” An accountant needs serious math skills so he or she can do the serious math that is necessary for an accountant. Another example would be an economist. Economists need to do math up to and past calculus. Engineers also need math of incredibly advanced levels in order to perform their jobs properly. Numerous things could be required in schools that nearly everyone uses I’ve seen all of these as elective classes. However, the problem with requiring them is that they are too specific. They do not teach the skills that I’ve shown the already required classes to have. Conclusion My opponent has a huge burden of proof. He claims that most of formal education is a complete waste of time. For it to be a complete waste of time, he would have to show that most of it is completely without merit, use, or value. I have shown that it has all of the above, and that continued practice only improves the results. Also, he often says that some specific professions require the formal education skills. Even if there are very few, this shows that, to them, it was a valuable use of their time, and because of that, this education is not a complete waste of time. A large part of his argument is reliant on the so called "memory loss factor," but he has offered no conclusive proof that this exists to the extent that he claims. My opponent fails to look past the facts, when one of the main gains of formal education is the skills like critical thinking, researching and reporting, and problem solving skills. I look forward to my opponent's response.