David Foster Wallace This Is Water Summary

Education, as defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary, is stated as “[the] knowledge, skill, and understanding one acquires from attending a school, college, or university.” By definition of these terms, one first would think that true education is reading, writing, and math skills students are forced to endure for twelve plus years in cold metal desks. True education, though, is the ability to question, think, and be aware of one’s self and surroundings in order to develop skills to grow and prosper. Public education in its ongoing state interrupts this process. Granted that the majority of American youth is publicly educated, public schools are the backbone of the American citizen. Why do Americans allow schools to fail at meeting its criteria
He states, “...the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.” It most certainly is hard to talk about. Before reading this piece, I never gave “awareness of others” much thought in how it plays a role in how I, and others, process and learn things. If a goal of public education is to make students aware and realize their weaknesses to develop them like their strengths, public schools are failing. It is mind blowing that so many advanced pupils like myself in class have never realized that Wallace’s topic of awareness was also a weakness of our own. Since public schools focus on being so politically correct in order to not wary off the set path of math and reading, it isn’t that common for self realizations like mine to happen. In not being able to recognize faults and form a solution, students will become shutoff and ignorant to the world around them. After all, schools are supposed to outline their