The Purpose of Education

My ideas this week are much, much too big for one little blog, but as my time is also limited, I am trying to focus on one question this week. What is the purpose of education? As I read about the history of education for the first time this week, I noticed that we seem to have many of the same arguments about education today that have been happening for generations. As David Tyack states in the introduction of our book “Schools are the most familiar of all civic institutions” As a society we expect school and education to be an integral part of childhood. And although we all seem to agree that education is important, we seem to disagree on the purpose of education which leads to endless debates of policy. So, what should be the goal for the students in the education system? There seems to be a multitude of ideas.

1)      Is the goal for school to be an equalizer? Should every person (not matter their social status) have the chance at an education that can open doors to a better life? I would answer absolutely, yes!  Horace Mann argued that school should be an equalizer, and I would agree that ideally, education should be the only key needed for social success. In reality, education can open some doors and help people improve their own lives; however, full social class transformation is rare.  Nor is fair and equitable education available to everyone just yet. The good news is we have made progress in this direction. Public education (although shown to not always be equitable) is available to everyone. And, we have made great progress in the percentages of high school graduates and even though we have a long way to go, more students of all ethnic and class groups are attending college and other post high school training. Education can not by itself be a solution to equality, but as society progresses so do our schools.

2)      Is the goal of education to be a platform for social change? It certainly has been, and to me this makes sense for two reasons. For one, school is one of the only places where children are exposed to ideas and ideals other than those in their home. Children are not only mold-able and adaptable; they are also naturally good and loving. As we saw in our book, children are not naturally prejudice. Children are naturally accepting, and we as a society teach them otherwise. If we want their future to be better, we need to reach them before those other societal forces have hardened and corrupted that natural acceptance. Also, school is central to our lives. It’s been proven throughout history that making changes in school really does affect the majority of society which makes it not only a natural platform but also a powerful one.

3)      Is the goal of education to prepare a workforce? Or Is the goal of education to prepare students for college?  I say YES!!! To both of these ideas. I think everyone should be a positive contributing member to society and one excellent way to do that is to have a good solid job. Most of the best jobs require post-secondary training, so ideally we want to provide children with the skills necessary to succeed in that learning environment.  We all have different skills and strengths however and college is not the ideal environment for everyone. This is why some students need to leave high school with the work skills they need to immediately get a job and the life skills necessary to function as a happy adult.  So we have to prepare both college students and a work force. And to make this even more difficult, because of the changing economy, we cannot even predict the exact skills and knowledge both types of students will need. So what is the answer? I think George hit it on the head in his blog when he said we need to teach, "work-transferable skills, including communication, teamwork, and perseverance (maybe we can even help them develop curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control" I truly believe that if people had these skills they could be trained for just about any line of work or success in college. I am hopeful for the future if we can teach those skills.

There are other ideas out there for the goals of education including finding and training our future leaders who may also add to the ideas of what school should be. In truth, I could write for pages about the purposes of schools. For me, school was a place where I learned what kind of adult I wanted to be and what kind of future I wanted to have, and that process took me along a path that provided social movement opportunity, exposed me to more enlightened social ideals than those with which my parents were raised, trained me to work hard, taught me a desire to strive for knowledge and higher learning, taught be how to get along with my peers and be part of a community, and even taught me to hone leadership skills. School must have a multitude of endless purposes because the purpose of every person going through our education system is different. It is a lot of pressure to think of all school is expected to be and do for our society, but it also gives me a love for my career that I know makes a positive difference in the lives of children, and especially when I acknowledge how far education has come, I have hope.