Purposes of Education

For educational foundations we had to post a quick write about how many points out of 100 we would allocate for the four major purposes of education (humanism, character, economic, citizenship). I wrote this:


Humanist: 40
Character: 40
Economic: 10
Citizenship: 10


I was tempted to award all of my points to the humanist and character dimensions, but then I realized that for me, there are salient reasons for directly teaching the importance of good citizenship and the relationship of education to economic outcome. I suspect that this may especially be true in the context that I teach in, a largely low income community where the link between schooling and economic success may not be made explicit in the community itself. Teaching about character and humanism is great and absolutely the bedrock of sound teaching in my opinion, but it would not sit well with me to help create a group of highly enlightened individuals who still may not have the tools they need to improve their economic conditions and their representation in government. While educating from the humanist and character perspectives will certainly give them critical thinking skills needed to forge their own ways out of poverty and into more accurate societal and governmental representation, I believe that there needs to be at least some direct instruction in these matters.

If you haven't figured out my new fav word is 'salient' :)