Education. What is education. Is it something that makes a person more respected, valuable? Or is it something that means nothing? To me, education is how Allan Bloom put it, “the movement from darkness to light.” Recently, I had the opportunity to interview three people that are very dear to me, my mother, my sister, and my brother. Today, I will be portraying each interviewee and I will distinguish each one of them by using different objects. An apron for my mother, a stay at home mom, makeup brushes for my sister, a college student and video games for my brother, a middle schooler. I wanted to see what their point of view on education was. Would their point of view be the same as mine? Or would it be different? When I had interviewed all of my interviewees, I noticed that all of them had educational regrets. So that is the topic I will be talking about today: educational regrets.

“Um mi mayor arrepentimiento es no ver asistido, no haber terminado la escuela. Porque si yo hubiera terminado la escuela, si yo me hubiera esforzado en, en terminar una carrera, no hubiera tenido tanta problema económica y ante la sociedad también. Porque hoy día las personas que estudian, se esfuerzan, valen más. Logran tener um buenos trabajos, una economía estable para sus hijos, para sus nietos. Pueden dejar herencia. Entonces um ese es mi mayor arrepentimiento. Que si yo hubiera terminado la escuela no, no hubiera pasado por tantas, tantas situaciones económicas que a veces se viven por no tener educación. Ese es mi mayor arrepentimiento. De no haber acabado mi escuela para, para poder haberle brindado a mis hijos una posición económica mucha mejor.”

“My biggest educational regret has to be not trying in school. I always took my education for granted, so that is something I would change. If I would have tried in school my GPA would have been high enough to get into the college I wanted to get into. I did not plan on attending a community college, I wanted to attend a different college.”

“Boy. I don’t understand your questions, but I guess not paying attention during uhm class. From the beginning, I remember wanting to fit in, and uhm fitting in meant not caring about your grades. So that is my biggest educational regret, uhm wanting to fit in. If I did not care about that then I would have gotten good grades from the beginning.”

All three interviews were interesting. My sister and mother had a lot of educational regrets. Both thought they had not won in education, but yet they value education greatly, which I found interesting. My brother thought he could not say he had won in education because he was far too young. I personally have yet to win in education. My education story is far from over, but hopefully at the end of my journey, I will be able to say that I have won. I encourage all of you to strive for the best. Winning in education does not mean going to the best college or obtaining the highest degree possible. Winning in education means trying your absolute best, and when you think you have won in education, then you have won.