Blogger John Warner saw that the New York Times asked right educational experts to reflect on the purpose of school. He thinks they missed the point that is most important. His response reminds me of what John Dewey emphasized. For a child, school is their life, right now.
He writes:
Just about every essay framed school as something that would deliver some kind of positive future benefit. The reason to go to school is because it will pay off someday in terms of economic prospects, or being an informed citizen, or having an appreciation of nature.
This views the result of school as a product, an outcome. I would rather we look at school as a process, an ongoing experience. For that reason, my answer to the question “What is school for?” is:
To be engaged.
Surveys show that pre-pandemic we had something of an “engagement crisis” with fewer than 50% of students saying they were engaged in school and nearly one-quarter saying they were actively disengaged. Engagement declines with each successive year of schooling. This problem has been significantly exacerbated by the disruption of the Covid pandemic.
By framing school as something that will only have benefit in an indefinite future, we ignore the importance of living in the present. As I say in my book Why They Can’t Write, “Life is to be lived, including the years between 5 and 22 years old. A world that suggests those years are merely preparation for the real stuff, and the real stuff is almost entirely defined by your college and/or career, is an awfully impoverished place.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I insist and have insisted for decades that schooling is a social process by which we learn how to learn (by learning things) and we learn how to work together. Student’s lives are focused on these things when they are most free to do so. They are not weighed down by having to earn a living or care for their loved ones.
To state that an education is to accumulate knowledge and gain saleable tangible skills for later is ludicrously wrong. Sure, I taught at a college that offered welding courses and auto repair course, etc. These were tangible abilities that could be used to support those students in the future, but that was at a college. Prior to enrolling in those courses, they needed to have learned how to learn and to work with others, as well as learned enough about English, math, science, etc. to be able to benefit from those course.
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Schools should have a rich and varied curricula in a social context. It is disappointing that so many schools are isolating students through the overuse of technology. Students are not widgets waiting for a standardized stamp while they ride on a conveyor belt to their utilitarian destination. Learning, growing and expressing oneself are so much more than that.
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Although I agree with much of your perspective, I would posit that “vocational” courses, much like welding also teach far more than process. I was a studio art major and a secondary art teacher. My students learned far more than content. Using their hands opened these students to a creative process that changed their thinking focus and approach to learning. A couple of years ago I heard a commentary on the brain that stated our cranium holds only one part of the brain. Our hands and extremities hold the same neurons and synapses that exist in the brain because parts of the body work together to solve problems and think critically. When our educational focus moved back to discrete vocational preparation we neglected the very learning that actually prepares us for productive adulthood. When we reduced student exposure to using the hands and unstructured social interaction in early education, we denied opportunities to diversify motivation to learn. I read a great deal about vocational school advocacy, but this in fact misses the point. If children aren’t allowed to manipulate materials at an early age then intellectual growth is limited to factual knowledge absent creative wonder.
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There was a best seller about 10-15 years ago about the value of learning by hand. But I’m stumped for the name right now.
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I think it was “Shopcraft as Soulcraft.”
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This is a point made more poignantly by Jonathan Kozol when writing about children in the South Bronx and the many educators who treat them only as material to form for future utility. This treatment fails to honor their lives in the present which, for too many, will be the best they have.
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“future utility” — such a
sad game we are now trying to resist
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Warner:
“Just about every essay framed school
as something that would deliver some
kind of positive future benefit. The
reason to go to school is because it
will pay off someday in terms of
economic prospects, or being an
informed citizen, or having an
appreciation of nature.
This views the result of school
as a product, an outcome.”
Go figure, Papa John seems to
be on the same page.
Dewey heralded at the onset
of the twentieth century,
(Pedagogic Creed statement of 1897)
” Every teacher should realize he
is a social servant set apart for
the maintenance of the proper
social order and the securing of
the right social growth. In this
way the teacher is always the
prophet of the true God and the
usherer in of the true kingdom
of heaven.”
How’s that for the so called
“wall of separation between
Church and State”?
Is “proper” social order or
“right” social growth, the
product of public debate
or a distillation of
private discussion?
Indeed, it is an engagement
crisis.
Connecting students to the
“distillation of private
discussions” has yet to
interrupt the interests
being served.
The invocations of “Democracy”
continue to clash with the
reality of interests being
served, yet they are continued
by the “shepherds” as though
it wasn’t an illusion.
For all the eulogiums and
exhortations embellishing
the institutional mechanisms
established by power, the
interests being served
remain uninterrupted.
Until the contradictions are
brought to a head, nothing
will change.
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School has purpose, but it also has meaning. What is the meaning of school? What is the meaning of grandparents? What is the meaning of books? What is the meaning of social gatherings? School has meaning as life has meaning. I just don’t know what the meaning of life is. I don’t know the meaning of school either. I know life is good, though. So is school.
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Here is John on my podcast talking about “what school is for.”
https://civicmedia.us/podcast/what-is-school-for-oct-4/
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College Ready In Kindergarten
College Ready by end of K
Bachelor’s by First
PhD by Second grade
A life that’s well rehearsed
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School is a child’s first connection with community. Community schools prepare students to be a part of the community. This includes a period of time when students are encouraged to learn through activities that the community values. Plays, choral events, sports contests…all are invented by those who understand this.
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I have another take: If you have to ask what the purpose of school is, then we’ve identified problem A. For most of our history, that question wasn’t asked–nor was it answered for most. We all knew it was important and we hoped our children would be smarter and make better decisions than we did. Not so anymore.
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In Arizona, the Republican candidate for governor does not believe there is any reason for school. She wants to fund home schooling, vouchers, charters, even pods of parents who teach whatever they want.
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Republican parents who voted for Trump don’t see the problem with home schooling.
And therein lies the problem.
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