Going about our daily activities in life make us realize that regardless of which direction we turn to we always come across educating ourselves inevitably. Education is a fundamental necessity for living. Attending schools and going to colleges may be easy for some, but there are others who never had the chance. If they did, either they quit studying at a certain point in time and never got to have the opportunity again. It becomes distressing especially for a good number of adults who have spent half of their life feeling sorry for himself/herself for missing a great deal of something valuable. The breakthrough of technology has given hope to many. The advancement of computer and the Internet brought back long lost chances and made a lot of “impossible” things possible. Now, adults can catch on where they left off and continue an unfinished business, if not pursue something further in the line. The aid of computer technology reaches us and in just the tick of the clock opportunities are open the way we expected them to be. Education is important not only for kids and young people, but just as significant to adults. Adult education is a phase where adults believed they can improve their standard of living. It somehow promises a kind of living made more bearable in today’s competitive societies that exist anywhere we turn.
There are many choices of degree programs for adults. They can choose among the fields of study available in good schools and colleges. Getting an extended education is relatively easy if you have your priorities in order that it is all designed to help you get ahead. Adult education can be continued in any stage of life. You can pause to take a good look at your future and it comes to you that it must have something more in store ahead. And then you think about what benefits it may bring to gain further education and how it can influence the later part of your dreams. Come to think of it, our dreams do not stop at a certain age. There’s no such thing as becoming totally secured and stable at a point in time. Our dreams do not end with age, it continue to exist. Therefore, as long as we have dreams we should continue to learn and keep our education intact. The value of adult education lies in enriching ones life.
Adult education is now gradually gaining grounds in many parts of the globe as countries realize that persuading school drop out adults and professionals to go back to schools and earn a degree is of vital importance. The need of being educated not only lies in the young generation but to the school drop outs as well to find time to enroll and become professionals, and those professionals looking for more opportunities.
The 2008 graduation ceremony at the Conway Adult Education Center will be attended by veteran educator of her time, Dr. Emma Kelly Rhodes, as this year’s graduation speaker. This is a very momentous event for the graduates as said accomplished educator is going to share her knowledge on May 17. Rhodes, according to reports has a very exciting story to tell about her life as a student until she became a very successful and accomplished educator.
Rhodes is happily married to the late Clyde Rhodes, Sr and their union bore seven children. As retired educator and former administrator for the Arkansas Department, Rhodes significant success was largely attributed to her doctorate degree in education after being a 10th grade dropout in high school at 15. Upon reaching the age of 29, Rhodes also became a widow when her husband died. Despite of that sad part of her life being left with seven children she still manage to sent them to high school, college and technical school aside from obtaining her GED. Rhodes obtained her BA degree at Philander Smith College and at the University of Houston. She had her master’s degree at UCA and pursued her Master of Science in Education also at UCA. She also got her Educational Specialist degree and Doctorate in Education at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. She finished her post doctorate degree at the Little Rock’s University of Kansas for her adult education. She had established the Education and Multi-purpose Center for Adult Education, E.K Rhodes activity center. She said it has been her mission to help others as well as persuading the parents and adults to pursue their career no matter what and even if they are already adult students. As of this month there are now over 300 students which have successfully obtained their GEDs and also graduating this May at the Conway Adult Education Center.
AS an adult, each of us has our own profession. But whatever our profession, we must be dedicated to that not just to survive financially but more importantly, so we can uplift the world that we live in. Sounds cliché? Definitely not. Because if all of us will cooperate on whatever endeavor we are good at, then this planet will be well on its way to a utopia.
Consider the year 2008 as a very challenging year and take it from there. There was one Australian futurist who claims that in the next 40 years, there will be another Ice Age and all eyes are in northern Europe. The glaciers there will melt and will give way to smooth farmlands while the rest of Asia will submerge in water. Therefore, governments this early must already study on how to bring about a massive exodus of population from Asia to northern Europe. The generation of high school students today will surely be the ones who will supervise the exodus 40 years from now. They must be prepared for this overwhelming academic challenge.
Another challenge facing the world focuses on the field of infectious diseases. In the 20th century, the world had a total of three pandemics killing more than two million people. We must not let those happen again. The first part of this millennium saw a surge of new strains in infectious diseases such as SARS, bird flu and E. coli. But since we had not let our guards down, we were able to prevent an outbreak of those diseases. However, we must not rest on our laurels. We must train our high school students today who will become our physiologists of tomorrow so they can protect the next generation of the world’s inhabitants.
But not all people are trained to become climatologists, state leaders and physicians. I am an artist for example. I am an Impressionist and my media are oil and watercolor. At the same time, I’m a professional football player and a member of the Australian national team. If I am to bring pride to my country, I must excel in these twin undertakings abroad. There is no other means to attain that except to constantly study. In my own little way, I have achieved constructing a library in my town here in Perth where I have acquired numerous books about the visual arts and about football. Studying even at the age of 22 still fascinates me. After all, studying does not stop when one graduates from college. It must continue to be a lifelong passion even when one reaches the age of 65.
There is one guy I know who is a movie critic. To be a movie critic, Gene must constantly be aware of the developments in the movie industry and the movie sector. And that is still studying. For example, Gene must know that there is already a new technology on how to appear one’s body bruised and battered on screen.
