As a teenager, it is very important to understand schooling and education. Many people mistake both and this has made both of them become ineffective.
Education has been mistaken for schooling and vice versa. Once you understand that both are different and you place them in their respective places, you would no longer continue to make the same mistake most people make.
Schooling is simply what you go to obtain within the four walls of a school, from the beginning of your time as a toddler to the last certificate or degree you bag. It is the continuation of the age-long tradition of dubbing ideas into students, the principles propounded by scholars, scientists etc.
Education is chasing your personal values, goals and dreams. Learning and doing what you know and are convinced is your mission on earth. It is a personal thing and cannot be taught in a school. You get educated by learning and doing (by yourself).
Education is improving on your gifts and talents and using them to improve the world you live in, improve those around you and let those who come in contact with you feel the positive vibe you let out.
Education is self-discovery, self-realization and self-actualization. Education is simply self-development.
None of them is less important. As a teenager, you must (if possible) acquire both. While you attend school, you must find those things you love to do, your gifts and talents and seek to put them to good use.
To be schooled, you get enrolled in a junior, senior high school, a college (or university) etc., to be educated, you must discover your calling and build yourself into it. Education as against what is generally believed is not taught in schools (basically). It is a personal thing. No one can determine the pace of your education but you.
To be educated on the other hand isn’t as direct as to be schooled is, this is because everybody have their different paths which they must take to become who you truly are meant to be. Education is improving yourself beyond where a school can. It sometimes builds on the foundation laid by schooling.
What are those skills you find unique to yourself? Brush yourself up. It is in the process of brushing yourself up and doing or practicing these things you discover who you truly are.
Read books, meet with people, socialize with those who already are what you want to be, get mentors, attend seminars, take courses, these are all paths to your self-development and evolution, from the current you, to the better you.
Education improves on what schooling brings to the table. Do all you can to build yourself beyond the four walls of a school. It’s fun and fulfilling.
If you love swimming for instance, learn all you can to swim, Michael Phelps is educated in swimming, Usain Bolt is educated in using the tracks, Ben Carson educated himself in Medicine, (as I said above, education sometimes build on the foundation laid by schooling, as is the case of Ben Carson).
There are several other examples, you know of them. Do not limit or restrict yourself to what a university can teach you. Education is beyond that. It encompasses what you can teach yourself, help others improve, leave a print in the sand of time and change the cause of history.
Seek education today as much as you seek schooling.