What is Education for?

Daniel D | May 2020

As teachers and educators, we spend much of our professional career jumping through hoops. 


Whether we are tasked with implementing a new school-wide policy on assessment, usually distilled into a CILE acronym plastered on a poster, or writing out comprehensive lesson plans that detail the number of times students cough in class, there's always something for us to do.


Sometimes these interventions are quite helpful, encouraging teachers to adopt evidence-based approaches to learning. But sometimes they seem contradictory and, frankly, a waste of time.


In all of this, there is usually one question that goes unanswered; why?

Not why in a superficial sense - to collect data on school performance, or to help students be more critical in their writing (what does it even mean for a school to perform or for a student to be more critical?).

But a deeper why. The kind of why that we sometimes forget about as soon as we leave training - what is all of this for? 

That being said, I am immediately suspicious of anyone who claims to know, in totality, the point of education. Surely, it's a multifaceted question with complex and competing answers that can change over time. And that's okay - let's hear them! 

After all, it's the way we approach that question that should ultimately guide our practice

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