The Purpose of School
After reading the “Fischbowl”, I found it interesting to think about the purpose of education. I know, at times, I get caught up in the moment. We all may focus on what is currently happening and trying to look at change for the better. Along the way we tend to forget the “little” things that are also important for the students.
“The purpose of education is to appropriately prepare our children for their future.” – David Warlick
I believe this quote is an accurate statement about the purpose of education. However, upon further reading I like how his quote changed to "The purpose of education is to make the world a better place!" We concern ourselves with academic scores and then turn our attention to antibullying progams, to virtues programs, to PLCs, to AFL scores, to attendance issues,etc, etc…
The purpose of education is the well being of all students, teachers, parents in achieving success and the pursuit of happiness. We need to focus on everything to help our students become contibuting members of society. Schools need to be a place where students feel safe and view as a positive place to be. It is the combination of everything we do to make school (education) a positive experience while preparing students for life outside of school. I am including a list created by Seth Godin that seems to cover what the purpose of education is. Feel free to add to the list.
Become an informed citizen
Be able to read for pleasure
Be trained in the rudimentary skills necessary for employment
Do well on standardized tests
Homogenize society, at least a bit
Pasteurize out the dangerous ideas
Give kids something to do while parents work
Teach future citizens how to conform
Teach future consumers how to desire
Build a social fabric
Create leaders who help us compete on a world stage
Generate future scientists who will advance medicine and technology
Learn for the sake of learning
Help people become interesting and productive
Defang the proletariat
Establish a floor below which a typical person is unlikely to fall
Find and celebrate prodigies, geniuses and the gifted
Make sure kids learn to exercise, eat right and avoid common health problems
Teach future citizens to obey authority
Teach future employees to do the same
Increase appreciation for art and culture
Teach creativity and problem solving
Minimize public spelling mistakes
Increase emotional intelligence
Decrease crime by teaching civics and ethics
Increase understanding of a life well lived
Make sure the sports teams have enough players
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6 comments:
Duane, I agree with Warlick in regards to the purpose of education. Seth Godin has a few statements that might be a half bubble off plumb, like, "teach consumers how to desire". Not only is this not a reason to provide an education to anyone, that kind of mentality is damaging to the environment. After all many environmental issues are the outgrowth to the consumption driven economic model we all proscribe to. Perhaps teaching kids how to conserve, to do more with less, to teach them about sustainability would be more appropriate.
The Fischbowl article and your posting have me thinking about our last class.
Remember:
Product, Praxis, Process
Where are these things in his posting?
I think our class agreed that we are a little bit of all three.
Okay Duane - I think you posted Godin's list just to see if you could mess with some readers like me. Perhaps that is why Godin posted the list in the first place.
Yikes!! I had to go and look for Seth Godin online as he is not on my radar. I can see that he is a white male with an upper class education. Cultural background, not disclosed. There are some items on his “purposes of education” list that make the hair on the back of my neck stand up:
Do well on standardized tests – As a Stanford grad I can see how this would indicate a measure of worth. Perhaps however he is unaware of the issues around cultural bias, author bias, narrow measures of “learning” and the whole marketing issue (isn’t that Godin’s expertise?) in which textbook publishers are often the creators of the tests.
Homogenize society – is this not what has contributed to most of our cultural issues within Saskatchewan, the desire to make society more uniform. This is the legacy of inculturation that was forced upon Aboriginal peoples as a result of colonialism.
Pasteurize out the dangerous ideas – Since he is on “milk run” of ideas I guess this follows his previous point. Watch out folks! Copernicus’s ideas, which challenged that Earth was at the center of the universe, were considered dangerous ideas at one point in time.
Teach future citizens how to conform – Sure, because while he is homogenizing and pasteurizing, that will help maintain status quo for white society. It will ensure that white values, white ways of being are predominate. It is pretty obvious who this would benefit and who this would marginalize. Is this guy serious?
Teach future consumers how to desire – Hasn’t society fed the narcissistic desires of individuals to dangerous levels already? Perhaps we need to teach future consumers how to think more critically about marketing, media and the impact of their “desires” on our environment.
Defang the proletariat – Because the less privileged weaken our society? Because we have nothing to learn about humanity from those that are less advantaged? Because we have nothing to learn about ourselves from others?
Find and celebrate prodigies, geniuses and the gifted – These individuals have much to offer our society. But as class member Pam has said about her students in her “functionally integrated” program, “they all have wonderful gifts and talents.” If educators can look more frequently at all students’ strengths and gifts and not just the issues and deficits they presents, then we can celebrate the genius and gifts of all learners. Would this have an impact on society?
Teach future citizens to obey authority – This is a repeat of homogenized, pasteurized, conforming institutionalism. Think about obey authority and then think about the sexual abuse in residential schools in Canada.
Teach future employees to do the same - So what does this say about whistle blowers who have had to courage to stand up against authority for what they believe in order to act against the powers of corruption?
Increase understanding of a life well lived – Whose perspective of “life well lived” do we want to adopt? Would Godin’s perspective be the same of some of the First Nations Elders in our communities?
Make sure the sports teams have enough players – Is this tongue in cheek? All sports teams? And when he says “enough players”, does that mean all citizens have equal rights to play and perform or only the skilled and talented? Does this mean that in elementary school we cut half the interested kids after try-outs so that they can, early in their life, learn that only the most talented get on teams because the goal is to win, and sometimes at all costs?
Marnie
Hi Duane,
I'm also convinced by David Warlicks words. He says thats its important for teachers that are new to technology to educate themselves and immerse themselves into learning about how computers really work and what difference it can make in our students. We need to really have to learn the basics if we want our students to have a chance in succeeding. Almost everything is about computers. It's amazing how its' evolving and making sense.
Warlick's purpose of education is appropriately open-ended. I have another take on the purpose of education from D.W. Orr. that, "a fundamental principle of education should be that it prepares people to live and work to sustain the cultural and ecological integrity of the places they inhabit." This of course comes from my reading about Place-Based Education.
I get a kick out of Godin's list. He has his tongue firmly in his cheek with his list, and at the same time he speaks the truth. Is there really anything on the list we haven't tried to do in our schools at one time or another? Ask Freire if that's not true.
how to get a little praxis in there. I think that it was darryl that said praxis makes perfect?? darcy
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