The Purpose of Education

Take a quick survey of the people you encounter this week.  Ask them, "What is the purpose of education?"  Then come back to this blog and read it.  Okay, I didn't really expect you to do that, so I'll just go ahead and tell you some of the answers you are likely to hear.
- To train you for a career.
- To get into college.
- To get a better-paying job.

I live in the Research Triangle area with NC State, UNC Chapel Hill, Duke, and Wake Forest all within shouting distance, so my perspective may be skewed.  You might get some other answers, but I am guessing that the vast majority of answers will fall into the areas of getting into college and getting a job (and a "real" one at that).  I want to say something kind of radical.  Education is NOT about getting into college!  Education is NOT about getting a job!

Don't get me wrong.  It is nice that these things often result from being well educated.  I'm glad that students learn something in my classes that will help them in college and careers, but it is NOT why I teach.  I did not get a good education in order to enter a profession in which I would work 75 hour weeks so that my students could earn more money.  In fact, I have high respect for people who work in mills and factories and fishing boats and farms.  I want those people to have education whether or not it leads to career advancement.  Since I do not even believe everyone should go to college, I certainly didn't enter the teaching profession to ensure that kids get into college.

So, what is the purpose of education?  I believe there is more than one purpose, so allow me to ramble about a few of them.

1.  Discovery of Talent - All people have been gifted by God in some way.  Education helps them discover what that gift is and develop it.  This is an area in which our current attitude toward education does harm to students.  We implicitly send students the message that the gift God gave them is less valuable than the gift he gave someone else.  If a student is an amazing dancer, we too often encourage them to keep that as a hobby while they pursue accounting or computer science because you probably won't make money as a dancer (forget about the hundreds of thousands of people in dance companies across the world who make their living as dancers, not to mention those on Broadway or in music tours or at Disney).  Students need to learn in as many areas as possible to discover and develop their gifts (more on this in a future post).

2.  Brain Training - About once a year, a student will ask "When am I ever going to use this in life?"  This question only arises when something is difficult, so I have little respect for the question.  There are answers to this question, but it also isn't the purpose of education.  Everything you learn makes a connection between the neurons in your brain.  While that piece of information may never be important to you again, the connection it has made in your brain will be.  It means that the next thing you learn can be processed faster.  We all get this when it comes to physical workouts.  No one asks "why should I lift this weight when I don't need it to be off the floor?"  We understand that we are training our muscles.  Education is training your brain.

3.  Learning to Love Learning - First, let me apologize on behalf of any teacher that made you hate learning because their class was so boring.  Hopefully, that teacher is a minority in the profession, and they should definitely not stay in the profession if that is their norm.  Learning is amazing.  If it weren't, there wouldn't be so much viewership of Kahn Academy or Crash Course channels on YouTube: and there certainly wouldn't be a Discovery Channel or shows like How It's Made.  People are wired to learn.  It is why the average five year old asks 400 questions every day.  It is why we invent new things.  It is why we explored the west and went to the moon.  It is part of our nature as human beings and one of the things that separates us from the animals.  They learn, but we enjoy it.

4.  Reintegration with God - Adam and Eve's sin broke EVERYTHING.  The fall affects the entire universe, and it broke our relationship with him, our relationships with each other, and our relationship with the creation.  Education teaches us about His nature through the reflections of those aspects in creation.  Whether it is the rationality of math, the beauty of poetry, or the patience reflected in the Grand Canyon, we see reflections of God's character through is creation.  Despite his lack of religious devotion, Einstein called it, "thinking God's thoughts after Him."  While education cannot redeem us, it is an aspect of God's plan.

Thinking of education in these ways will definitely change your approach to it.  You will stop trying to find the easiest way to an A and start pursuing a better understanding of everything God puts in your path.  If you are a parent, I beg you to stop saying things to your kids that reflect only a utilitarian approach to learning.  Encourage them to train their brains, love learning, find their gifts, and use those gifts to glorify God.  It matters.