What is the purpose of education

What is the purpose of education

Greetings bloggers!

In this blog, I will be exploring what the purpose of education is, along with my pedagogical beliefs. To begin I will discuss the definition of pedagogy, the definition of pedagogy is “the method and practise of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept” although in his review “successful futures” Donaldson challenges this definition and says that pedagogy is more than just teaching, he says that pedagogy is about an array of methods that can be used to aid a child’s development and meet their individual needs (Donaldson, 2015 p.63) I much prefer Donaldson’s way of thinking about pedagogy, it’s nowhere near as generalised as the actual definition is; I strongly believe that a big problem in today’s education system is that the curriculum is too general and doesn’t take into account that children are individuals and cannot be assessed on things like standardised tests. Although on the other hand, it is extremely difficult to assess children any other way. Without getting too off topic, I understand that assessments need to be carried out in the form of standardised tests, although I don’t agree with it, but I also understand that pedagogy doesn’t need to be standardised, building relationships is a very important part of a child’s holistic development, tailoring how you teach to individual students is an excellent way of making a personal connection that children in the foundation phase need.

My own pedagogical beliefs are that teaching in the classroom should be as inclusive as possible, make every child feel like they are actively contributing to the lesson. The multiple intelligence theory greatly interests me, because I resonate with it given my primary experiences, in primary school I was never very good at history or geography, they were just my weak subjects, and music lessons were purely learning about the origin countries of instruments and things like that, but when I went to secondary school my understanding and passion for music flourished and I don’t think it should’ve taken me that long to determine music was my strong subject. The reason I am talking about this is because it ties directly into cross curricular learning which I along with Donaldson am a strong backer off, cross curricular learning is about incorporating lots of different skills and subjects into the same lesson which not only makes lessons more interesting, but it involves pupils who may not usually be as proficient in the main subject.

I will now delve into what I believe the purpose of education is, along with contrasting opinions.

There is no definitive answer on what the purpose of education is, it’s all down to your opinion; but it is very interesting to see the different views that exist. I personally believe that education has, over time become a term we use for the process of gaining qualifications; it has long lost all meaning of ‘Gaining knowledge’ and ‘learning’, education is no longer a tool but a process. In my view, most people have lost the desire to want to learn and enlighten themselves and just focus on doing what needs to be done to have qualifications under their belt. My gloomy view on what the purpose of education is was heavily contrasted when I asked the same question to my partner who has no background in education studies, her reply was  far more philosophical than mine; her view is that the purpose of education is simple “the purpose of education, is to just educate yourself, to gain knowledge because you want to, and use that gained knowledge to be a better person and in turn, make the world a better place” this answer took me by surprise and prompted me to look up more philosophical views on what the purpose of education is. “Education is the device that allows one generation to pass on to the next generation all that is has learned through experience” (Bass. R 1997) This statement got me thinking about how long education has been essential, and I determined that it has been essential since the dawn of man.

I’ve learned that education isn’t merely a tool used to acquire a good job, it means a lot more than that, education is the thing that allowed man to survive and become the most dominant species.

In the eyes of the education system, the purpose of education is to prepare you for adult life, although I will include below a video detailing how schools are failing to prepare pupils for adult life. I don’t believe schools are doing everything wrong thought, yes there are ways in which schools fail to prepare students for adult life, but in a few ways, they do prepare you for adult life.

A routine is something that all working people have, you get up, go to work, eat and sleep; getting up every morning for school and having lunch and break at a certain time can be seen as a precursor to working life, a strict routine you must follow every day. Caregiving routines and spontaneous exploration can also provide a rich environment for learning (Smith A. B. 1999)

References

Bass, Randall (1997) ‘The Purpose of Education’ The Education Forum 61 pp.128-132 Taylor Francis Online [Online] Available at: http://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.cardiffmet.ac.uk/doi/abs/10.1080/00131729709335242 (Accessed:10/12/2017)

Anne B. Smith (1999) ‘Quality childcare and Joint Attention’ International Journal of Early Years Education 7 (1) pp,85-98 [Online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/0966976990070107 (Accessed 10/12/2017)