Education is defined as, “the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially in school or university.” Another definition is, “an enlightening experience.” These two definitions hold true to the word education. In my opinion, a lot of us take education for granted. Especially being that we live in America where there are tons of public schools where everyone is accepted, and it is free to attend, we tend to forget that there is an innumerable amount of people who are living uneducated, due to several different factors. These factors include gender, safety, disabilities, child marriage, natural disasters, poor countries, low amounts of teachers, child labor, poor sanitation, and finally because there is no school for them to attend in the first place.

I feel like I, as well as many others in America, take our education for granted. We constantly complain about our homework loads, annoying teachers, and standardized tests. While those are flaws in our system, I believe we should still be thankful for having a system in the first place. If we lived without education, our precious smart phones, computers, and flat screen TV’s would cease to exist. Cars? Forget about it, you will have to walk everywhere. Where would you go? I bet we wouldn’t have grocery stores, restaurants, or malls without education.

Not to mention how illiterate we would be. Statistics say that 14 percent of U.S. citizens are illiterate. Compare this to South Sudan where 73 percent of citizens are illiterate. While both of these numbers are alarming, one is obviously exponentially higher than the other. We need to realize as a country that these numbers are not all right. The 14 percent of U.S. citizens being illiterate is not okay, as well as the 73 percent of South Sudan citizens being illiterate is not okay.

We need to notice our own flaws as students, by appreciating the joys of learning. That is what school is all about: to teach you new ideas and give you new perspectives so you’re not a drone of your parents. Learning molds you into the person you end up being in the long run. If we cannot be thankful for learning now, we need to train ourselves to appreciate it later on. To look back at our lives in school and not continue the complaining, to celebrate our right of learning, and to reminisce on all the things we now know because we had the privilege of being educated.