Educational Purpose
One of the recurring and central themes of debates, discussions, and arguments concerning education revolves about the issue of purpose. More specifically, there is a wide divergence of ideas and opinions with respect to what the nature of educational purpose should be.
The problem is critical because pretty much everything that goes on within education is affected by the clarity, or lack thereof, that characterizes one's understanding of this notion. Politicians, government officials, school boards, principals, teachers, students, parents, universities, businesses, and media representatives all tend to evaluate the process of education in terms of whether, or not, a given school, class, student, and/or teacher is engaged in the sort of activities which seem capable of realizing the purpose(s) that one, or another, perspective has projected onto education as the reason or reasons why one believes it is worthwhile pursuing.
Educational reforms are proposed, or resisted, because the changes being put forth are believed to either advance, or undermine, a particular purpose of education. Power struggles within, and among, schools, school boards, districts, and governments are often, either directly or indirectly, about matters of: educational purpose, who gets to control what that purpose will be, and how such a purpose is to be realized.
The following comments provide a brief overview of some of the many purposes which could shape an educational context. The exercise is not an academic one for there may be an oasis, of sorts, awaiting us at the end of this journey.
However, in order to better appreciate the potential value of what such a sheltered area may have to offer, one needs to understand, to varying degrees, the actual nature of the problem with which we are confronted. Perhaps, one way of achieving this kind of insight is to outline some of the available possibilities and see where reflection on these perspectives might lead.
The exploration is not meant to be exhaustive. Yet, a sampling of such candidates may be all that is necessary to provide sufficient evidence to lend credence to the idea that the aforementioned oasis of mystery is not a mirage and is capable of helping us to survive, if not flourish, amidst the arid wasteland of education with which we, currently, are surrounded.
If one were to ask interested parties about what they believed the purpose of education should be, one might receive something like the following list of candidates. This would include:
(1) preparing for jobs and careers; (2) acquiring civic responsibility and an understanding of the nature of democracy and government; (3) forming character, along with developing ethical and moral sensitivities; (4)learning how to solve problems; (5) fostering processes of critical thinking; (6) awakening and honing spiritual or religious awareness; (7) being initiated into a tradition of accumulated cultural and scholarly discoveries, institutions, and achievements; (8) realizing individual and collective potential; (9) searching for truth; (10) mastering emotions and forming healthy relationships within families and communities; (11) nurturing creative potentials through art, music, literature, and dance; (12) becoming world citizens and stewards of the earth's collective ecological, economic, technological, and humanitarian future.
Some lists might contain just one of the foregoing possibilities. Other lists might involve more than one candidate, and among these multiple selection lists, one would find the choices being combined in different ways.
Nevertheless, whether an individual selects one educational purpose, or a number of them, a person is faced with a need to begin specifying what is meant by the educational purpose, or set of such purposes, that one is advocating. This process of trying to put purpose into concrete terms, will raise a number of questions that must be answered satisfactorily before one can hope to enlist the support of other people. Moreover, the following questions are but a small subset of the total number of critical questions which might be asked in relation to any given approach to educational purpose.
For instance, what kinds of jobs and careers should students be preparing for? How does one prepare students for a job market whose characteristics, demands, needs, technology, and problems are constantly changing? Who gets to determine what such preparation will entail, and on what basis does one justify either the 'who' or the 'what'? How much say and choice should parents, students, teachers, schools, boards, businesses, and governments have in shaping and implementing such determinations? What remedies are there if the process of determination turns out to be faulty?
What rights, duties, and responsibilities are inherent in the nature of civic responsibility? What is democracy? Is it just a matter of the majority rules or are there rights and principles to which individuals are entitled that cannot be ignored by the majority? If so, what are these fundamental rights and principles, and how does schooling either enhance them or undermine them? Whose version of democracy should be taught or learned?
What does character formation entail? Is it a matter of nature or nurture or some combination of the two, and if the latter, what is the precise relationship between the two? Is character a function of ethics and morality, or are the latter a function of the former? Which systems of ethics, morality, and character formation should be taught and why? How should these systems be taught, and do individual students have any choice in what they are, and are not, exposed to, or to what degree?
What kinds of problem solving should be taught? Scientific? Mathematical? Political? Economic? Legal? Emotional? Social? Spiritual? Interpersonal? Which methodologies ought to be adopted and why? Can all problems be solved by a core set of techniques, and how do we assess the quality of any given 'solution'?
What is meant by 'critical thinking'? What assumptions, methods, values, goals, and criteria are involved in critical thinking? Is there only one way of doing 'critical thinking', and if not, how does one compare different styles of critical thinking? Can everyone develop a certain degree of facility for critical thinking? What is 'objectivity'?
What is meant by spiritual or religious realization? Should the approach be exoteric or esoteric - that is, concerned with only the outward rites and litanies, or focused on inner, mystical possibilities, or some combination of the two? Should a variety of traditions be taught, or should only one? What about those who are not interested in pursuing religious or spiritual goals? Does the constitution forbid the teaching of religion in public schools, or does it only forbid the use of public schools to establish a given religion independently of a person's right to choose her or his own path or to be free of the ramifications of such a process of establishment?
Given that the intellectual and cultural gifts of the past which have been bequeathed to posterity have taken thousands of years to accumulate, and given that there are experts who have spent their entire lives just trying to master one or two of the aforementioned set of gifts, and, finally, in light of the fact that such experts disagree about the significance or importance of different aspects of what has been bequeathed, how does one go about selecting which subset of the entire collection of intellectual and cultural treasures should be introduced to students in elementary, middle, or high school? Is the memorizing of certain facts the best way to engage what has been bequeathed, or is the development of an appreciation and understanding concerning the principles, issues, problems, and methods entailed by the achievements of our predecessors, the best way to go? If the former is preferable, then, which set of facts should be selected and what justifies such a selection? If the way of insight, understanding and appreciation of principles and issues is chosen, then, which insights, understanding, and modes of appreciation are to be taught, and why? And, what are the criteria for determining what constitutes: "best"? Will learning such things make individuals better, more responsible, more committed, and happier, and if so, in what ways is this so, and how do we demonstrate this?
What is meant by individual or collective potential? Is this potential: intellectual? spiritual? physical? economic? cultural? political? creative? or, some combination of these, and, if so, what kind of combination, and what, precisely, is meant by any of these various sorts of potential? How are individual differences in potential treated and what significance, if any, should be attributed to such differences? What if an individual is interested in developing some of the potential but not all? What if these inclinations run contrary to what others in society feel is appropriate?
How do we recognize the truth? How do we search for it? How many levels of truth are there? Is searching for the truth an obligation, and, if so, what is the authority that sanctions this sort of duty? Can the truth be discovered only through rational means or are there trans-rational ways of engaging the truth, as well? What is meant by rational and trans-rational? Even assuming that one could learn the truth of things, what follows from this?
What does being emotionally 'healthy' mean and entail? Which criteria are to be used in evaluating this issue? What justifies using such criteria? Can one teach someone to be emotionally healthy? How do identity, personality, and temperament figure into the equation? Is being 'normal' necessarily the same thing as being 'healthy'? What are the roots of pathology? How does one distinguish between individual differences and pathology? What constitutes a 'healthy' relationship - in terms of rights, duties, freedoms, obligations, love, compassion, kindness, tolerance - between individual and community, and among communities?
How essential is creativity to either the individual, or the community, or both? What functions does creativity serve? Is creativity largely a matter of innate talent, or can it be taught to people irrespective of natural abilities? Should any boundaries be placed upon the development and exercise of creativity, and why, or why not? Is life a creative art form?
What does it mean to become a citizen of the world? What assumptions, values, and principles should govern the assuming of stewardship? What kind of future for earth - ecologically, economically, technologically, and politically - ought to be sought? What justifies such an agenda? Who, if anyone, should oversee the process of stewardship?
All of the foregoing questions can be approached through a multiplicity of perspectives. Thus, one could use methods, values, and principles from: physics, philosophy, law, religion, psychology, sociology, economics, ecology, evolution, politics, mythology, chemistry, mathematics, history, humanism, anthropology, art, literature, music, and so on in order to address the various issues, questions, and problems entailed by any given idea of educational purpose. In addition, within any of these disciplines, there is a tremendous amount of variation which, substantially, could influence how one frames the issue of educational purpose, as well as how one tries to answer the foregoing questions.
If one wished, one could argue until the cows came home - if they hadn't wandered off somewhere during all of this discussion - about which set of methods, values, perspectives, and principles best served the combined interests of individuals and the collective alike. One also could argue about how one should go about evaluating such proposals and what constituted the most valid and reliable means of assessing the situation.
Assumptions, values, criteria, methods, goals, needs, interpretations, biases, qualities, theories, and paradigms could be debated endlessly. Yet, no matter how much time, energy, and resources were, are, and will be devoted to this process, not only is achieving a general consensus unlikely as far as which educational purpose(s) should be pursued and implemented is concerned, but, as well, one also is unlikely to establish even a simple majority.
In short, while there might be agreement about some given purpose in the abstract, as soon as people begin to try to make the transition to concrete, specific policies, programs, and curricula, agreement will disappear. In place of education will emerge a Tower of Babel - which brings us to the present times.
In the absence of agreement, various officials and groups have sought to impose educational purposes upon communities. The people who have done this try to give the impression that they have a mandate to do so, but such is not the case, since, in truth, decisions concerning education are, for the most part, made by the few, quite independently of what the needs, desires, or wishes of the majority may be.
On virtually every level, the process of education is, with some exceptions, under the thumbs of a variety of arrogant, ignorant, self-serving control freaks, who refuse to share power with the people who are most affected by their self-centeredness - namely, students and parents. Sometimes these power mongers are politicians, and sometimes they are: principals, superintendents, teachers, unions, or school boards, and sometimes they are various combinations thereof.
Such people insist that only their approach to the issue of educational purpose is valid. These people presume that they have the right to impose their purpose on to the community, irrespective of what damage ensues to the lives of individuals and communities alike, both in the present, and in the future.
The imposition of educational purpose is anti- thetical to the principles of democracy. Indeed, education should be one of the key areas in which freedom of choice, individual rights, and fundamental principles of liberty help keep the spirit of democracy dynamic and vibrant.
How can education inform citizens about the nature of democracy when, to a very great extent, the practices of the people in charge of the former process are authoritarian and autocratic, and, therefore, exhibit few, if any, democratic qualities? When education is largely a dictatorship, what attitudes concerning the nature of democracy are going to be formed in the minds and hearts of children - perhaps permanently?
When education is steeped in tactics of control, force, punishment, regimentation, indoctrination, manipulation, and punishment, what is a student learning about the 'democratic' way of doing things? When students do not have the right to choose their own educational destinies or are not permitted to find and utilize the approach that is best suited to their individual styles of learning, then, really, what is the difference between so-called 'democracy' and fascism, communism, or dictatorship?
The process of education could be immeasurably improved in North America if the people in power would stop trying to convince everyone, including themselves, that there is only one way to do things - namely, their way. In truth, there are many constructive avenues to educating the youth, and students have a right to select from among these, and, as well, have viable access to them.
The responsibility for preparing for the future belongs to the individual, and one must provide that individual with the time, degrees of freedom, resources, and choices which are needed to realize one's capacity for an active and mature sense of responsibility without any of this being pre-empted, undermined, or imposed from without. Let students - in conjunction with parents, teachers, and other educational resource people - map out their own programs and use whatever combination of home schooling, vouchers, public education, charter schools, tutoring, and private enterprise that will help the individual realize his or her educational objectives.
Public schools should be permitted to accommodate a variety of educational purposes, simultaneously, within one and the same school. Let students, in consultation with others, construct their own programs and help them learn how to engage this process responsibly - that is, in a manner which will be of value for both the individual and community.
Teachers within a school should enter into constructive, co-operative cycles of improving the quality of education by providing students with increasingly enhanced opportunities for engaging the educational process through a variety of purposes, methods, ideas, media, techniques, and materials. Schools, more than any other institution within democracy, need to be deregulated in order that everyone may benefit from the tremendous potential of individual differences - among both teachers and students - being permitted to interact with new modes of educational synergy and cybernetic feedback loops.
Furthermore, there should be a greater variety of choices among subject topics. Beyond the usual 'group of suspects' (e.g., reading, writing, arithmetic, mathematics, history, geography, science, and so on), students should also have the opportunity to explore different dimensions of, say: philosophy, various kinds of psychology (including abnormal, social, deveopmental, trans-personal, theories of personality ), sociology, anthropology, computer science, political science, law, medicine, crisis intervention, wilderness survival, entrepreneurial skills, hermeneutics, mythology, as well as media and cultural studies, plus whatever other subject topics may serve as means to help the individual student engage the world and begin to learn about it in a rigorous, constructively adaptive, and critically reflective manner.
Democracy thrives amidst diversity of perspective. Not every student has to know the same things nor understand them in the same way.
The people who established democracy in various locations brought their individual differences to such projects, and through the dynamic interplay of those collective resources, democracy became possible. Moreover, the people who helped democracy to survive and develop, did so by lending their individuality to the needs of the community, rather than limiting themselves to drawing from a sterile or stagnant pool of ideas and actions.
The experience of being able to freely engage the universe through a process of considered exploration (i.e., education) that serves the interests of both the individual and the community, is what binds people together within a democracy. An education which is mired in the uniformity and conformity of a common stock of 'facts, methods, and ideas' is not the glue that holds democracy together, but a poison that, sooner or later, will destroy both education and democracy.
For students to be able to flourish - and, as a result, for democracy to prosper - they need to be given the opportunity to choose from among public schools, tutors, voucher supplements, charter schools, the internet, and home schooling in order to be able to put together a rich, varied, heuristic learning program. Permit the student to be able to explore an array of educational purposes, and let the individual arrive at her or his own conclusions about how to learn and make use of the process of education.
Enterprise zones of education should be established within every community to provide an array of teaching styles, resources, and opportunities that would both increase educational choice, while generating revenue for the community. Ways should be found to enable these zones to make use of the thousands of people who are earning doctorates and masters every year but are either unemployed or working beneath capacity. These ways might include: teaching; publishing; writing; research; or, various cultural activities, ranging from: theater, to music, poetry, and so on.
Broadening and deepening the choices available to students does not necessarily cost any money. It often only requires people in power willing to share that power with others, or permit that power to be distributed in constructive ways within the community, and, thereby, enable people to make more efficient, effective, and creative use of existing resources.
In order for democracy to be viable, there must be a balancing of individual and collective interests. Nonetheless, to suppose such a balance can be achieved only through authoritarian and dictatorial control of, among other things, the educational process, is totally absurd.
Indeed, one enriches democracy whenever one can increase choice and freedom without undermining the essential interests of either individuals or the community, or adversely affecting the balance between the latter. Increasing the degrees of freedom within the process of education is not a descent into anarchy but, rather, a fulfilling of the promise of democracy in which individuals and communities alike benefit from the resources which are generated through the empowering of students, parents, and teachers to use a variety of means to enrich the dynamics of learning - dynamics that will shape the fate of democracy's future.
Education, like democracy and capitalism, is about having the freedom to choose. Education, like democracy and capitalism, depends on people learning how to engage such freedom responsibly and constructively. Education, like democracy and capitalism, cannot survive if the capacity to use choice in order to learn responsible behavior is undermined by autocratic rulers who insist that everyone must learn the same things, in the same way, at the same time, for the same purpose.
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