Growing up in a suburb of St. Louis I was consistently enrolled in private catholic school education from the time I was 6 until I was a senior in high school. I may have had to drive 25 minutes to get to school but some of my best friends still went to my district’s public high school 5 minutes down the road. At times I tried suggesting to my parents that I should leave my catholic high school and continue my education down the road where it didn’t cost a dime to attend classes. My parents never so much as gave me the time of day to listen to my arguing points but some of my friends always managed to make side comments about our friends who went to public schools in the St. Louis area. These comments ranged from, “Oh we’re receiving a better education that Joe Schmoe who attends public school. Can’t wait till he works for us…” or even as I began college I still heard, “Joe Schmoe went to a public high school, therefore we won’t achieve as good of grades as some of us and won’t know how to study for multiple tests at one.” Personally, for being a huge supporter of the concept of nurture over the idea of nature I think these statements made by my fellow classmates were naïve, ignorant, and overall complete “bull s#*t.” It doesn’t matter where one attends school but how they apply themselves at that school. It depends if their parents drilled in their head the concept of studying multiple nights before a test or making it a known fact a D on a report card meant 1 month of being grounded. It depends on who the student hangs out with and those friends’ dedication toward school. The more diligent and serious someone’s friends are about school the better student that person will try to become in order to live up to their friends expectations. Innate gifted intelligence is possible but how one applies themselves in school is what really matters, whether it is a private of catholic school. Overall it depends how your primary sources of socialization (parents, peers, and the media) helped you understand how important it is to establish good study habits at a young age and actually learn as you attended school, no matter the level of education. As Handel, Cahill and Elkin write in regards to neural plasticity, “These research findings suggest that the biological development, structure and functioning of the human brain is ‘largely environmentally regulated’ ” (Human Neural Plasticity and Socialilization, 12). Our future in life does not depend on what type of education we received but how well we took advantage of the educational environment we were brought up in. As stated above it is important to have a well established education environment sourced through our primary sources of socialization in life.
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