What is education really for?

It seems obvious, but isn't really. Education is supposed to teach you things, right? But what is it supposed to teach? And who is it for? And, what exactly are we talking about when we say, "Education"? Do we mean compulsory schooling? Do we mean school in general, whether it's compulsory primary education or post-secondary schooling? Or do we mean something more than that?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines education as:
1 a: the action or process of educating or of being educated; also : a stage of such a process
b: the knowledge and development resulting from an educational process <a person of little education>

2: the field of study that deals mainly with methods of teaching and learning in schools

When I was in school, I was told that you couldn't use a word to define itself. This definition isn't very useful then, but if we dig down a couple more layers we'll find this definition for educate at the same dictionary:
1 a: to provide schooling for <chose to educate their children at home>
b: to train by formal instruction and supervised practice especially in a skill, trade, or profession

2 a: to develop mentally, morally, or aesthetically especially by instruction
b: to provide with information : inform <educating themselves about changes in the industry>

3: to persuade or condition to feel, believe, or act in a desired way <educate the public to support our position>

intransitive verb:
to educate a person or thing

That definition is a little more helpful. It at least gives us a place to start our discussion. According to this definition, education is about training in a skill, trade or profession and/or to develop mentally, morally or aesthetically. It is interesting to note that all of the definitions given suggest that one person has to educate another, but the example sentence in 2b is about autodidactism, but we'll get to that, later.

The point is, education is about learning skills, morals, aesthetics, and ideals of your culture so that you can perform a job and get along in society.

In modern Western society, there is a strong emphasis on that part of education which happens during the early years of one's life, up to the age of 16 or 18 in most places. This is the time when you are most pliable, when you are most easily trained in the way that society wants you to think and act and in the job skills that society believes they will need at the time that you are ready to join the workforce.

According to John Taylor Gatto, the modern school system in America was built specifically to create a supply of well-tamed workers to feed the needs of industrialists. That might sound like a radical conspiracy theory, but if you think about it a little bit, what he says is not really far fetched at all. Even if you assume nothing but the best intentions on the part of the people who created the system that purports to educate us and our children in modern times, you can't escape the fact that it is a stated goal of that educational system to shape children into a specific kind of adult. You also can't escape the fact that children in specific places or matching specific racial, socio-economic, or other profiles are guided into specific educational, and thus professional, paths. The people who are part of this machinery aren't doing anything evil or intentionally cruel. They are simply playing their small role in a much larger system that fails to ask the simple question, "Why are we doing this?" and thus cheats countless individuals out of reaching their full potential and experiencing a more satisfying life.

Many people say that it doesn't matter whether a child's or adult's life is satisfying or fulfilling. The important part, they think, is that every adult be able to get a job and support themselves so that they won't be a burden to society.

While it is a good goal to ensure that every person is able to provide for themselves, the school system as it currently exists fails to provide some of the keys necessary to help people provide for themselves and their families throughout their lives. Most teenagers graduate from high school with little or no work experience, and no skills that they can put to work in a job that will make a living wage. Most teenagers lack job searching skills, and in fact, most adults who find themselves unemployed discover that those skills must be learned afresh, or possibly for the first time. Worst of all, both young people and older people have been discovering each year that the skills that they worked so hard to attain in school are obsolete or irrelevant by the time they look for a job. So, clearly, the system is failing us there.

There is another theory about public education which says that we have compulsory education for our children so that they will learn to be good voters. Once upon a time you couldn't vote if you couldn't read. Today, of course, reading isn't a prerequisite for voting, but it sure helps a voter to be as informed as possible. The one problem, besides the fact that many students make it all the way through the compulsory school system without knowing how to read well, is that most students are never given any training in critical thinking as part of their schooling. Without critical thinking, the voter is easily led and manipulated, and democracy is thus severely hobbled.

In my opinion, education in the primary years needs to be less about shaping worker bees and more about shaping life long learners. Beyond that goal, education should be individual and varied, engaging and challenging. Most importantly, it should be clear to every person that their education does not stop when or if they stop taking formal classes. Learning habits should simply be built into our culture.

Educational goals in the twenty first century must rest on the acceptance that we do not know what job skills will be needed in ten years, much less in twenty or forty years and must be aimed at encouraging individuals to not only accept information as knowledge, but also to be able to think critically about problems and proposed solutions with an eye towards both technological advancement and societal advancement.