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Over the last few months, I have had the pleasure of working with a number of independent schools. For those of you who work as consultants, you know how different schools can be, especially when you compare independent schools, with public schools, and even more so when you throw in international schools. What teachers and administrators do is not that different, nor is what the schools, classrooms, and libraries look like. What’s different is the conversations.
On several occasions, lately, when working with teachers and administrators at independent schools, I’ve been asked, “What is the purpose of education?” It’s not a question that comes out of public school conversations very often. We already know what education is for. The government told us.
Education is about:
- Covering all the standards
- Improving performance on government tests
- Meeting AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress)
- Producing a competitive workforce
We don’t even ask any more — and even in this season of Change (http://change.gov/), we’re still not asking that question.
Now I generalize when comparing different types of schools, and to be sure, independent schools are also governed by testing, as many of their students attend so that they can get into Harvard, Yale, or Duke (Go Blue Devils). But, again, there is a palpable sense of confidence in the conversations I witness when away from public schools — a willingness to ask tough questions.
I’ve had a ready answer to the question.
There are some implied, but essential questions in that answer:
- What will their future hold? What will they need to know?
- What are appropriate method, materials, environment, activity?
- Who are these children? What is their frame of reference?
Today, I have a new answer. My old one is still good. I’ll continue to use it. But if you ask me, “What is the purpose of education?” today, I’ll say,
What drew me to this answer was Karl Fisch’s teleconferencing activity last week (see A 2.0 Sort’a Day: Part 2). As I thought more about the experience, it occurred to me that this was an almost singularly unique activity — beyond the fact that students were interacting with an internationally renowned writer, exchanging thoughtful insights, and the really cool use of technology.
What struck me in hindsight was that these students were earning respect. They were respected by each other, by their teachers, by the instructional support professionals, and by the internationally renowned figure, Dan Pink. Their engagement in that activity will continue to be respected by people, young and old, who will read the archive of those multidimensional conversations.
Those students were full partners in their learning, and they were entrusted to go beyond just what was expected. They were encouraged to freely extend and develop their own thoughts, skills, and knowledge, building on their own frame of reference, pushing and pulling through conversation, and being responsible for their part of the endeavor.
Preparing students based on standards, so that they can pass government tests (to make politicians look successful), carries expectations. Students should listen, study, learn, and assure gain. If they do that, they’re doing what they are supposed to do. We’re happy about it. They’re happy about it. Let’s go home.
But, when there is a mission, where teachers and students are equal partners in achieving new learning — and they both realize that it is not simply about new knowledge, but more importantly it is about new potentials, then we’re not just producing cogs for an industrial and societal machine. We all becoming better and more inventive builders of the future.
Let me get back down to earth here. Before I graduated from undergraduate school, I spent some time working in manufacturing. One plant made oil filters for cars. Another one made dog collars — for dogs. The factory that I spent most of that year in made chain saws.
I started out operating drill presses and milling machines in the machine shop and also spent some time as a setup man. But the last job I had at the plant was quality control engineer. I got to wear a white lab jacket and walk around with rolled up blueprints, spouting vocabulary that I have long since forgotten.
Essentially, my job was to take the chainsaw parts at the end of their fabrication and use high-precision measuring instruments to test them, to make sure that they all met the specifications, that they were all the same, and that parts that exceeded the acceptable tolerances from the standards, were sent back for retooling or rejected.
How much is this just like what we are doing to our children. They move down the assembly line, where we install math on them, and install reading, and science, and then we measure their learning at the end of the year, to make sure they all meet the standards, that they all know the same things.
Of course, this makes perfect sense in an industrial age, where you need workers who know the same things, think the same way, working in unison.
In a conceptual age, however, it isn’t what you know that’s the same as everyone else that brings success to an endeavor. It’s what you know that’s different, how you think and solve problems that is different, your ability to bring a new set of knowledge and experience to the task that brings value.
Why do we continue to treat our children like cogs.
Change this!
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An excellent and important question, and one that frustrates me to no end as a public school teacher. I dream of the day when the public schools move away from the Carnegie Unit and the outdated factory method of education.
I recall two teacher’s who changed my life. They taught me the meaning of education both implicitly and explicitly. Both were steeped in classic and ancient wisdom traditions – and spoke often of the need to integrate the mind, body, spirit and soul.
What is education? My seventh grade Latin teacher, taught us its Latin roots (e-ducare) … “e” (L: out of) “ducare” (L: draw or lead out). And what is drawn out if not the very soul of a student, revealed in those early years as a gift or talent. These harness the spirits and as they mature and challenge themselves to put these talents to good use in service of humanity, they find themselves richly blessed with a deeper understanding of soul.
This kind of education takes time. The soul is drawn out over many years. In the typical western progression, it starts with knowledge and perhaps the spirit refined by competitions, only later is it encouraged if at all with the reflections of the heart.
Why not start with the heart? It is the clearest path that leads to the soul. This has been missing in most public schools and what contributes to the success of schools that integrate values-centered education.
What is education? It is a life-long process of recognizing one’s gifts and talents, of putting those gifts and talents to good use in service of the greater good. Education leads a person to find their place in society with all the attending rights and responsibilities of adulthood.
We have been having a similar discussion within our department – trying to figure out how to bring out what love about science (the exploration, the discovery, the excitement) in our students. But more importantly how to do this with one hand tied by the district and the administration: standards and the growing number of specific test prep initiatives that have been implemented to meet AYP. We are finding less and less time to cover content, let alone inspire creativity and passion about the sciences. This is some we continue to struggle with – making many of us feel like a cog in a machine. We have to do more.
Hi David,
As a teacher involved both in special education and in reading in the elementary grades, I agree with you that the assembly line approach to “installing knowledge” in our kids must change. I think the purpose education is more complicated than people generally understand. I certainly wouldn’t boil it down to the government’s answer to the question as being comprehensive in some sense. The government is a stakeholder in education – not just a service provider. Stakeholders are sometimes at odds in this discusssion. My answer, for an article a couple of years ago…
“Education in America has no purpose – at least no one, singular, canonical purpose. The purposes of education are multiple and interwoven. Those purposes change with age, environment, and the peculiarities of individual students so that even within a specific classroom the primary purpose of schooling for this child may be one thing and the primary purpose for that child may be yet another. In the case of any given child, the parents’ purposes for sending the child to school may differ significantly from the purposes of the educational agency requiring the child’s presence. And in as much as the provision of educational services is a joint venture that usually involves at least three different government agencies (a local city or county, a state, and the federal government) the purposes of the various agencies taking part in this partnership may vary significantly, or even be at odds.
“For all parties involved, the purposes of education change significantly with time. Kindergarten has a unique set of priorities for everyone engaged in the educational process. The nature of those priorities change significantly by middle school, are additionally altered in high school, and are further renovated in the college setting.”
http://specialneedseducation.suite101.com/article.cfm/a_philosophy_of_education_
I think Robert M. Hutchins nailed part of it when he said, “The object of the educational system, taken as a whole, is not to produce hands for industry or to teach the young how to make a living. It is to produce responsible citizens.” He also said “the death of a democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.”
I think it should read, The purpose of any education is to produce responsible GLOBAL citizens.
Many things can be said about public schools and their failings but undeniably we must acknowledge the fact that a public school is the ONLY place that ANY child can attend no matter what their abilities or circumstances. Students around the world would flock to our doors given the opportunity.
@ David
A great post . Many of these thoughts are mirrored in Ken Robinson’s “The Element”. If we no longer have to turn out students with the exact same set of skills why do we focus our pedagogy to this end? I work in a private school with a religious affiliation and we try to focus on the mission of turning out young men and women who think critically, lead effectively, and live humanly. We also hope we can instill a passion for life long learning and creativity as we no longer live at the turn of the industrial century. The hard part is always asking ourselves do we do what we say we do? We have much soul searching to do. We owe our students the best education possible and the refusal on our end to reflect on why we do what we do is not helping. My school is beginning to ask these critical questions and I am looking forward to the changes it will bring.
This is a question that frequently plagues educators. Often times, the answer is to blame the teacher for not educating the youth of today properly. Your statements address necessary change. I try to get my students to understand that they are learning about learning, so in the end of things they can own their own knowledge.
Well said! I like this posting and am going to throw out some random thoughts that passed through my head.
While I am not an advocate for standardized testing, I do feel that there does need to be some level of basic knowledge that we all share.
Once that common foundation is realized we can begin to branch out more easily from the current standard, specialize, and develop the differences that facilitate success.
Reading this, I was reminded of a time when I was inputting transcripts for some of our students that were taking college courses while in high school. A three credit course was only granted 0.75 credits. I was confused by this and argued by saying that the student most likely gained more knowledge from that college level course than they would have in a high school one. Why not grant the full credit? My question was – is this about knowledge gained or time served? Turns out that it was about time served… that was a very frustrating day for me. I thought…no wonder students think of school as jail sometimes. I can think of a lot of students who could have earned their diplomas long before 12th grade – they just had not served their time yet.
In this case, “our cogs” need to have accrued a certain number of man hours before an upgrade is granted.
We are all unique – and certainly, not all cogs are equal they come in different sizes and with different numbers of teeth and are placed in such a way that they facilitate the function of different parts of the machine as a whole. Trying to use a particular cog where it doesn’t fit seems like something that would break the machine.(Repair 101)
Maybe we are breaking our machine?
Thank you for the call to change – more need to hear it.
The purpose of education according to the Northwest Ordinance is: “Religion, morality, and knowledge” are “necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Our founding fathers knew that education was important for a free people. This may be why education is still America’s greatest export.
I’m a tech. But I have taught Chemistry and Physics for 20 years. I have seen this question for 29. Over those years, I have come to the conclusion that the Government demands their definition of education, because they can easily evaluate that definition.
For example, the answer to the density of water is a known value and if it is a choice on the multiple answer question, you will get it either right or wrong. But if I ask you to determine a means to calculate the weight of an oak log floating in a pond, the answer there might be a little harder to grade. So, no evaluation of the student, or of the teacher or the school system is obtained. And if the government is going to give you a large amount of money to educate their children, they need to evaluate your effectiveness.
My definition for purpose of education is to teach children to think. Unfortunately, that takes more time, more resources, and more individual contact with students. And it is almost impossible to evaluate.
Take your purpose statement, “The purpose of education is to make the world a better place!“
Then switch the question. What is the result of education?
Does the purpose align with the result? Is the world a better place because of education?
As you say, “It’s what you know that’s different, how you think and solve problems that is different, your ability to bring a new set of knowledge and experience to the task that brings value.”
Maybe the purpose of education is to allow you to do that? But does doing that make the world a better place? Maybe. Probably. Hopefully!
This is actually one of the better things I have read from any blog in a while. This line:
“…it isn’t what you know that’s the same as everyone else that brings success to an endeavor. It’s what you know that’s different, how you think and solve problems that is different, your ability to bring a new set of knowledge and experience to the task that brings value.”
…is elegantly simple. I couldn’t agree more here. I spend my time working with 16-18 year-old juniors and seniors (when I’m not coaching fellow colleagues as an IC). I can’t tell you how often I try to drive home the point that they are going to have to do far more than score that piece of paper in college (degree) to have a career that inspires them. When we are rooted into a “workmanlike” progression through the hoops of school- it is easy to imagine that next hoop as the one that will make all the difference. I shared college classrooms with many friends who do anything but work in a field related to the biological sciences. What was the difference? No experience… No independent research. No extraordinary internships. Nothing unique. This is a message I can’t seem to preach enough to my current students.
I feel that we spend precious little time inspiring, then coaching children along a self-chosen path towards success. Until we do that, I am afraid we will be batting our heads against a wall like always. I live near Kansas City and I will never forget the late 80’s and 90’s when the managers of the KC Royals felt they were only a player or two away from getting back into the World Series. I will never forget the lessons that seemed clear to me back then… tiny adjustments rarely achieve great results in a short time. When things are as broken as they are now, a new & improved high stakes exam is just not going to deliver the Change we preach.
Sean
“The purpose of education is to make the world a better place!”
A good answer to a good question, a question that is not asked often enough and is too often misunderstood.
Your answer is a very old idea. The ancients Greeks and Romans saw education has liberating; that is it freed a person from ignorance, for the pursuit of human excellence–hence the term liberal education. “Become what you are,” says Pindar, and he doesn’t mean “Follow your bliss.” Moreover, he says that with the distinctly un-modern understanding that personal and public pursuits and obligations are the same: to be a fully realized person, I must also be a fully realized individual in society. Jacques Maritain, the 20th C. French philosopher, saw the relationship between persons and individuals in society this way: as a person I ought to contribute to society so that the goods of a society, enlarged by by efforts, flow back on me, making me more than I could be if I stood outside society. It’s a positive feedback loop. Modern Jesuit schools get it, as they always have: education is intended to prepare men and women “for others.” At my school, Island Pacific School, we try. Our motto is “Learning to Make a Difference” and we’ve built our curriculum on a model of a revitalized liberal education. But as a small, independent middle school it’s been hard to swim against a still ebbing tide. I like to think, though, that the talk around Web 2.0 technologies marks a turn in the flow; that as we rethink our methods and tools, we are also rethinking–remembering, is a better word–our ideas of the purpose of education.
Thanks for keeping the dialogue going.
Are we asking what is the purpose of education, or what is the purpose of schools?
I would argue that the purpose of schools is to spark intellectual curiosity in students, then provide them the resources to satisfy it. In the post-industrial age, the knowledge that they can learn whatever they like (and the desire to do so) will best equip them for life in the information era.
I think that the purpose of education is more nuanced. For individuals, the purpose of education should be to enable them to live the life they will find most fulfilling. For society, it is, as you said, to make the world better.
I loved your analogy.
I am impressed by your answer to the question “what is the purpose of education?” It is sad that, facing all the standards and various government tests, our students become products out of assembly line, they find their ultimate satisfaction in knowing the correct answers and passing the tests, and instructors are forced to become test-centered leaving students’ individual needs behind. Should students who fail to meet the standards and pass the tests be rejected like products which do not meet the specifications? Are students who are all the same without individuality and the guts to be different what we expect of our modern education? To change the way our children are treated, we have to think about “empowerment”—empowerment of our children and teachers.
Been thinking a lot lately about the concept of “partnership” regarding students, schools, and teachers. That’s the part of your post that resonated most with me. Partnership connotes ownership and investment, which I think are missing to a certain extent in the current education model.
David,
Thank you for putting my exact thoughts on education so eloquently in to this blog! I am so tired of seeing our students treated as mere passive recipients of knowledge, empty receptacles, who are expected to follow the teacher’s directions and regurgitate information. It is very bothersome to me that memorization is called learning; being able to follow the instructions is called being successful; and not asking questions is called being a good student.
The purpose of education for me is teaching a student how to learn, and how to process and apply that which is learned. In other words, we, as educators, must give our students a set of strategies, a way of thinking, a mindset even, with which they will be successful regardless of what their future holds. Some of the jobs that these kids will be performing in the future do not yet exist now. However, by encouraging our students’ ownship of
Stumbling upon your blog was like finding a gem in my pocket. I agree with Sean’s “elegantly simple” review of your words, “…it isn’t what you know that’s the same as everyone else that brings success to an endeavor. It’s what you know that’s different, how you think and solve problems that is different, your ability to bring a new set of knowledge and experience to the task that brings value.” It is a the core of what I believe teaching is about – cultivating uniquely special and diversified critical thinker and problem solvers. The problem is, the solution isn’t simple. What I have learned so far in teaching – novice as I am – is that I need to hold myself to a “No Excuses” policy, as I do my children. As an Art teacher I find nothing more enjoyable than cultivating their unique abilities but it undoubtedly requires more effort than the other “assembly line approach.” I do it because I love it, but there are teacher out there who don’t love it and don’t do it and so how can we ever claim to be a “Professional” when only some of us are willing to toil and do the necessary work that needs to be done? What we do it far from easy, but done without imagination it could appear so. I just tell them to keep dreaming, dream big and dream hard and then match that dream with effort and you’re going places.
I feel that we spend precious little time inspiring, then coaching children along a self-chosen path towards success. Until we do that, I am afraid we will be batting our heads against a wall like always. I live near Kansas City and I will never forget the late 80’s and 90’s when the managers of the KC Royals felt they were only a player or two away from getting back into the World Series. I will never forget the lessons that seemed clear to me back then… tiny adjustments rarely achieve great results in a short time. When things are as broken as they are now, a new & improved high stakes exam is just not going to deliver the Change we preach.
David,
A group at our campus used this post today for a jumping off discussion for a learning community we have formed, and it was fascinating.
All of us felt very empowered by your eloquent definition of education–whose purpose is to make the world a better place.
One of our teachers wondered if we shouldn’t also try to make our own “world” at our own campus a better place–by interacting on campus with one another in community ways, and by teachers within the campus interacting much more with one another and one another’s classes.
We also spent a lot of time discussing the individual value that each student brings, and how to encourage that self-value in a competitive AP oriented school where students are prone to compare themselves to one another.
More than anything, your definition was so eloquently inviting. Thank you for providing the “meat” for a great discussion.
Thank you for putting “voice” to a great concern of mine. I teach business computer technology, a vocational secondary class. “Vocational” stills carries the connotation of low achievers and those who are not college bound. I think that it should be quite the opposite. Many high school students are “burned out” on the same classroom drill of teaching to the state test. These students do not really see the need or correlation of education to their future career. If we are not preparing students for a productive vocation, then what are we doing in school? I would love any resources or responses on this topic.
According to me,the purpose of education is a way to make all of the students in a school or in another institute become cleverer then before.And all of the students can be an usefull persons for their country in the future.
I think this opinion was expressed well. But what kind of schooling are we talking about? Secondary? College? Secondary schooling is modeled after the Prussian education system. When George Washington first gained leadership in this country he had a German advisor for the matter of education. Which in turn lead to alot of German people settling here in America. Prussian style education is teeming with military based values. Ship them in, stylize them, seperate by class, and produce a more managable population. I am a student at I.U.S.B. and am composing an essay on the purpose of education. If any one is interested in reading the paper it will be posted on my myspace and facebook blogs. I am interested in feedback on the facts I come up with. I will post this after March 4th @ http://www.myspace.com/wegotthaze or search Sam Callantine @ http://www.facebook.com
I thoroughly enjoyed this article. I am an education student, and this is a question that is posed at the beginning of most classes that I take. I completely agree with the statement that the purpose of education is to make the world a better place. I also agree with the statement that the purpose of education is to prepare students for the future. I think these two ideas go hand in hand. By giving students knowledge and skills that they can use in the future you are making the world a better place. You are teaching students to care about the world and are giving them the skills to be able to make a difference.I think too much of education is based on just passing the test. What is this really teaching kids? I think if more educators took this stance, schools would have a much more meaningful and lasting impact on students.
education is for problem solving
From my recent application of engineering to the process of education, I am able to give an answer. The purpose of education is to service its customers, those who value its product. The ones who have a need to be filled (value to gain) are parents; and only they are able to value what they receive. Value is a personal determination. As a general description, the value is fulfillment of the parental purpose in raising the next generation. This exposes a major, culture-level, misdirection of resources which has been presented as serving the public. The public is made up of past, present and future parents; but only those in school are those who can receive and value educational results. The current lack of delivery of value to parents speaks eloquently.
I do agree with your statement that the purpose of education is “to make the world a better place”. But to get down to earth I should say it’s a systematic knowledge that’s used for the society’s good.
@Ichinkhorloo.A, ..but what knowledge is that. What knowledge will our children need 10 or 20 years from now, when we can barely predict what’s going to be influencing culture and driving our economy five years from now.
Certain there is certain knowledge that is timeless. But far more important is that they have the skills to learn what they need to know to do what they need to do. They need to be skillful, critical and responsible observers, workers, and shapers of their environment — and to care about it and each other.
Hey Mr. David,
Great article! I am a student at the University of South Alabama and I am taking a class called EDM310. It is a class that is revealing a lot to me about the advancements of technology in education. Part of my assignment brought me to the 2 cents worth blog. You raise a great question. It seems today high scores on standardized tests are the only thing that matter in education. What is that really teaching them? When all we need to do is fill our students with the information so they can spit it back out on a test to get a high score. Is the information really sticking with the students? As educators we should be more concerned with our students becoming engaged and motivated in their education. Promoting personal goals and creativity allow student’s to engage directly with their learning creating ownership in their own education. Instead of a lot of information spit back up for a high score. Thanks for the post.
I am a high school dropout ,not from lack of intelligence but due to the lack of challenge offered in a Governmental education. I have since become an educator, though on the smallest scale. I teach robotics, visual arts, writing, I have written poetry, and write at length on the freedoms of man. What I find and it tears me up , that few of my pupils or those wanting assistance, are unable to go beyond what I give and are stuck as a drone awaiting my every instruction every step of the way. As for the robotics, it is a wonderful program, one that teaches the children co-operation leadership and that of the greatest necessities, free thought. I find that not only are the children unable to expand ,by themselves ,without interference from the instructor, the parents ,whom I allow to attain, are nerved to no end because the children do not win a standing in the years end competition! So many simply miss the point! Your letter is of common sense, but I don’t see nor do I feel that common sense is a common standard any longer, replaced is this uniform-ness , this leave none left behind attitude, this frightful; expectations, this ….Clogs in the machine, I shall pin you to “pinterest” in hopes that others will see, that what I am preaching is also coming from someone with a heavier education than this high school dropout…
Peace
CWR
I am in a elementary teaching course. well what i learnt about the purpose of education is clear from John dewey’s quote-
‘education is not preparation for life, education is life itself’
I really enjoyed your article. I think that your comparison of teaching to the assembly line makes sense. I have found myself a lot lately wondering what difference am I making? How can I make a bigger impact on the decisions that my students make and help them to become better life long learners? Your statement about knowing what is different and the ability to bring a new set of knowledge really hits on target for me. I have different experiences than my students and their future holds something very different than mine. Thank you for your thoughts and sharing your experiences.
What is the purpose of education? Parents teach their offsprings to survive or the species goes extinct.
Therefore the purpose of education is to teach our young how to survive where they live. Without survival all other goals are mute.
In the human society survival requires moral virtues such as trustworthiness along with of the ability to provide service to others in exchange for value that can be traded for needed service from other trustworthy souls.
Each baby is born ignorant therefore each child must be taught moral virtues while teaching other skills. Skills include certain knowledge sets which must fit with in the capabilities of child. Knowledge without mortal virtues will not insure prosperity, education must include both.
@Jim Oase, There is a program where all above are introduced and modelled through learner profile, e.g. caring, open- minded, principled. We teach those through reading, discussing and acting to establish a safe and secure environment.
Education’s fundamental aim is to provide an academically and socially well-balanced education of a high standard for student body.
The individual potential of each child needs to be developed and confidence and self-respect promoted through the pursuit of excellence in all aspects of school life. Educational environment needs to encourage the pursuit of truth and values through the development of critical thinking skills and foster a spirit of learning and inquiry, which will continue throughout each student’s life. Schools need to be committed to the spirit of international education and aim to create a coherent and caring school community, which emphasizes respect for individual and cultural diversity.