Thinking freely, having knowledge, possessing mental skills. Why do some people prefer one more than the others? Is really one more important than the rest as people say, or is it how one thinks and believes? In "We Should Cherish our Children's Freedom to Think," the author Kie Ho (1998) discusses and compares the American and the Indonesian school systems. Ho believes that thinking freely is more important than knowledge. Sydney J. Harris (1998) agrees with Ho in his essay, "What True Education Should Do." Harris says that free thinking is much more important than knowledge. He says it benefits students more than stuffing them with facts. On the other hand, in "Teach Knowledge not Mental Skills," E. D. Hirsch (1998) compares both knowledge and mental skills, favoring knowledge. But based on my experience, I believe that the three--freedom to think, knowledge, and mental skills--are equally important and are three complementary elements in good education.
        Ho (1998) supports the American system of education. He uses examples of his own experience with the Indonesian way of teaching and examples from his son's experience with the American system. Ho expresses his disappointment with the Indonesian system, as they only stuff students with knowledge. In his school, they sat in class just to listen and answer only the correct answer. He and his classmates were not given the chance to think freely and express themselves in class. For example, he had to memorize facts and gain as much knowledge as possible from books, while his son was being taught facts through experience. For example, his son had to draw a map of the route he took every day from home to school, but when Ho was twelve, he had to memorize the names of all the major cities of the world. He states that when his son was twelve, he thought that Beunos Aires was Spanish for good food. He gave many other examples of his own experience, which he compared to his son's experience. One of the examples he gave was, when he was 18, he had to memorize Hamlet's "to be or not to be," while his son was assigned to write a love letter to Juliet in old English or modern lingo. Ho argues that schools should give children the chance to express themselves freely and not just stuff their growing minds with facts that they will soon forget after the year is over.
        Harris (1998) talks about true education, what it should do, and how people look at it. He says that most people think of pupils as "sausage casings" (p. 3) when they think of education. He says the schools and all educational institutions should care more about what they can get out of the pupils than what they can put in. So, in an indirect way, he supports free thinking. He quotes Socrates as saying, "Look into yourselves and find the spark of truth that God has put into every heart, and that only you can kindle to a flame"  (Harris, 1998, p. 3). He gives an example in which he supports mental skills over knowledge. His example is from a dialogue called the "Meno." It says that Socrates took an ignorant slave boy who had never been to school and proved to the people observing him that he could solve geometry. This is because the principles and axioms of geometry were in his mind already, but had not been called out yet. Harris is saying that the education institutions are not giving the students a chance to learn because of all the studying they have to do. In other words, "pupils are more like oysters than sausages" (Harris, 1998, p. 4). He is saying that the job of teaching is not to stuff students' heads and seal them up when done, but to help students to bring out the pearl inside of them, as he believes that inside each of us there is a pearl that we must learn how to get out of us.
        On the other hand, Hirsch (1998) disagrees with the American educational system. He argues that knowledge is the most important among the three elements. He bases his argument on an experience he passed through when he was a teacher in a public school. Hirsch worked with two different principals in the same school. The first principal did not care much about what students gained from their courses. The students’ academic performance was really bad. But the second principal was more concerned with knowledge and his students’ academic performance. He introduced a grade-by-grade "core-knowledge" (p.128 ) scheme, and the result was that the students' academic performance rose dramatically. For example, their reading scores where 13.5% higher than when the first principal was working in the school. Another disadvantage Hirsch points out about the American system is that there is no consistency in what children were taught in previous grades, and as a result, advantaged  as well as disadvantaged students are harmed. Advantaged students are hurt as they are left with huge knowledge gaps or by being bored with repetition, and disadvantaged students are harmed most, as many of them depend only on school for access to academic knowledge.
        Some people favor thinking freely, some favor knowledge, and some favor mental skills. This is because they believe that one is more important than the others to base their educational system on in order for future generations to be effective human beings who can do something for their country. Based on my experience, I cannot favor one or say that one is more important than the others, because as I said before, I believe the three--thinking freely, knowledge, and mental skills--are all important and are three complementary elements in any good educational system.

Harris, S. J. (1998). What true education should do. In R. Spack, Guidelines: A cross-cultural reading/writing text (pp.3-4). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hirsch, E.D. (1998). Teach knowledge, not mental skills. In R. Spack, Guidelines: A cross-cultural reading/writing text (pp.128-129). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ho, K. (1998). We should cherish our children's freedom to think. In R. Spack, Guideline: A cross-cultural reading/writing text (pp.125-127) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.