What is Education for?

[Brian Peacock]

When talking about education, the education system, and what constitutes 'an education', some people would say that education's primary purpose is to develop the potential of the individual. Others say that it should primarily consist of giving people practical skills they can apply to the real world - as training for the workplace, or whatever. Others site the importance of education in playing a central role in ensuring that the 'correct' moral and ethical values that determine the social and others responsibilities of a good citizenry, and some say that education should inculcate a strong sense of individualism, perhaps borne from the rigours of emotional, intellectual and/or physical challenge. This list is by no means a complete list...

Whatever education actually is in any given setting it nonetheless consists of many different and competing elements: some of these elements are technical, or administrative and organisational, some of them are practical in terms of content and resources, and there's a clear social implication as well. In our national discourse on 'Education' we hear much about what education should and shouldn't do, what it should and shouldn't be. We hear and talk about its successes, but more often than not we hear and talk about its failures. Too much homework. Not enough homework. Too much emphasis on Science, Technology, English and Mathematics, not enough emphasis on the Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts. Exams are too easy. Exams are too difficult. Students are pampered. Education is difficult emotionally, too stressful. Students are tested too much, or not enough. This is also a less that a complete list...

What gets lost, or perhaps the fact is we just don't think it's that important, is the question "....but what is education actually for?"

At least we know it's a good thing rather than a bad thing, right? It's better to have some education than none at all, and the more and better the education then, well, all the more and better? Yeah?

My point is, I think we (society) make it difficult for ourselves to figure out exactly what education is or should be and how it should or shouldn't operate, if we don't first ask the question '...but what is it for?' Personally I think that this question is best approached by thinking about 'who' education is for, and only then proceeding to the 'what', and then the 'how' .

[pErvinalia]

It's for indoctrinating good and upstanding conservative children into the immoral Marxist leftist world of debauchery and cuckery at the same time.

[Svartalf]

seriously, I don't know what education is for, I have an MA, flunked Law at the 2 year mark of the 3yr LLB, and some other bits and pieces, none of them crowned by a degree or official diploma... and all I got out of that was a short, undistinguished and destructive career in a job I could have applied for even If I'd been a highschool dropout.

[PsychoSerenity]

Fun!

[JimC]

It's for providing people like me a decent salary as we make adolescent brain's hurt...

[JimC]

OK, a more serious, and somewhat conservative answer. It's to provide children with a comprehensive set of tools to let them engage as fully as possible with their culture. To be quite old-fashioned, the most important structural elements of these are literacy and numeracy, which then allow the bulk of other important elements within modern culture to be engaged with. As these are mastered, then a wide variety of other skills become more and more available...

[Tero]

it's not for becoming a roofer. You can get a degree in heating and airconditioning, though.

[Hermit]

[JimC]

Those Pink Floyd chaps had a pretty good education, I believe...

[Hermit]

Those Pink Floyd chaps had a pretty good education, I believe...

Quite. Didn't stop them from noticing negative aspects of it. Roger waters said of his pre-tertiary education: "I hated every second of it, apart from games. The regime at school was a very oppressive one"

[JimC]

Then it should have been "we don't need no traditional, conservative authoritarian public school education, but we do need to be taught how to read and write, as well as develop the ability to think critically and analyse information"

Probably wouldn't scan that well, I suppose...

[pErvinalia]

[pErvinalia]

I think a focus on rote learning vs critical thinking is a big problem in education.

[laklak]

The purpose is to produce mindless drones to sacrifice to the Elder Gods. They're fucking hungry.

[JimC]

I think a focus on rote learning vs critical thinking is a big problem in education.

There are a few things, such as the times tables, that simply require rote learning. Other skills require some pretty rigorous and repetitive practice, which although not rote learning, are regarded with suspicion by a certain group of progressive educationalists. My view is that a balanced combination of those elements with critical thinking and problem solving is to be desired...