Education is the process of training a child through formal instruction in mental, moral and aesthetic abilities. This supervised training can be practice for a job, skill, trade or profession. The parents are the primary educators who begin the process and then usually contract the assistance of professionals to complete the task of education.
Home schooling is an option for some parents who value the opportunity to directly affect how their children learn. Networks of home-schoolers share ideas about materials and methodologies. Private schools are a more expensive option but give the student an opportunity to learn in a selected and more controlled environment. Some private schools are religiously affiliated. Others are non-religious and may have a special academic focus of interest to the student. The public school provides cost-free education to members of the community.
Early education has as its goal to form the child's mental capacities. Both verbal and numerical skills are developed in the early years. Being able to read, write, speak and listen in the language or languages of the culture is of primary importance. Being able to perform basic mathematical functions allows the student to calculate a discount, file his income taxes, keep his score in golf and calculate his batting average in baseball. Learning to work with others as a team and as a community is another important part of early education. Following rules and deciding between right and wrong is part of the educational process.
Early education has a lifelong effect on the student by creating a belief that she can in fact learn. Programs like Head Start have received government funding to take advantage of the window to develop children's cognitive abilities. But such programs also have their critics. According to "The Myth of the First Three Years" by John T. Bruer, "A perennial criticism of Head Start has been that any cognitive gains its participants make as measured by improved IQ scores, fade over the years and disappear." Other researchers conclude that education prepares children for a lifetime of successful productive work as adults and decreases the potential that they will be involved in destructive activities. "Low scores on measures of children's cognitive ability such as school ability, general intelligence quotient and verbal ability are associated with delinquency." reports JSTOR, a nonprofit academic research institution.
High-quality education for each child reaps the benefits of greater productivity in their adult years. People can lower the probability that they will become involved in gangs and crime and spend time behind bars. According to Lance Lochner, a professor of economics at the University of Western Ontario, "Empirically, an increase in educational attainment significantly reduces subsequent violent and property crime, yielding sizable social benefits." Education also allows children to grow up and enjoy a wider variety of entertainment and travel options.