What does education mean to you?

I feel that there is a huge difference between the education I recieved when I was in elementary to highschool than where I am now in college. Before college education was kind of a joke and I can honestly say I learned very little. The only thing that was pounded into your brain was how to behave and how to respect your teachers and other students. During that time you didn't have to depend on yourself for anything because your teachers and family would do things for you and carry you along the way. There was always extra credit and teachers were more than willing to help you after class. I feel like education in higschool was just cramming as much information in our brains as possible and then judge our intelligence with one standardized test at the end of the year. There were never any discussions and nothing was ever explained, and most of the teachers just read from the books. Everything you learned you would be tested on once and all that material would never be used again so you would forget about it as soon as the test was over. Im so glad to be in college now because I feel like what I'm being taught is actually being processed through my brain and I'm taking classes that I will actually benefit from in the future. Don't get me wrong not all of my teachers in highschool were horrible there were a couple of really good teachers but in college most of my professors are really experienced in the field they are teaching so they are really informed on the subject. The education I recieve now requires a lot of independent study which gets me a lot more involved in what I'm learning and I become more and more engaged with what I'm learning.