Are schools places in which children and young people are encouraged to think for themselves and introduced to the great fields of knowledge covering the artistic, scientific, creative, mathematical, technical, cultural and linguistic subjects?
Or are our school’s places in which the workers of the future are prepared to take their place in the national economy?
Perhaps a little of both but one thing that many will agree upon is that our schools must not be immune to the needs of the wider society and we do have a responsibility to give our pupils the skills needed to thrive in the wider world.
Main purpose should be educating children to responsible human beings + like you wrote, showing them different fields of knowledge.
However, I think most of the schools can’t keep up with the pace of technology and world changes. Most of them still follow the old-fashioned plans and are not able to communicate the topics in an interesting way.
That’s why a lot of students (especially when going to college) decide to use their time for getting knowledge outside schools.
I wonder if the purpose of education is in itself to instill the desire to learn, because learning of course doesn’t stop when one leaves school.
Perhaps then the purpose of education is to instill wonder in the students, to open their minds to an infinity of possibilities and fill them with a feeling of self worth and belief they can achieve anything if they put their mind to it.
The instrumentalization of education (eg the idea that education is to prepare students for the job market) driven by a profit motive is not working very well. I agree that education is best considered as an exploration of learning…skills can be acquired in the employment context.
