Another post from words I wrote years ago… this post is derived from something I wrote in 2013:
Education. Ever since there have been humans, they have invented methods of
teaching. The need to teach arises from our nature as social and technology-using
creatures. Humans need to teach the young how to survive (what to eat and how to find
it, how to modify the world for survival and comfort, and what is sacred, for example).
Most of these lessons are derived from the fact that humans must live in groups.
The lessons humans teach also derived from the hard and soft technologies that we use
to live. Our hard technologies include the artifacts we create (from stone axes to
firearms to cars and computers) and the soft technologies include those tools that exist
are ideas and practices (from knot typing and hand semaphore to banking and laws).
Within this context, there are many purposes of education that have been defined:
- enculturation
- essential cognitive skills
- civic and social responsibility
One of the challenges for educators is that all of these purposes of education can be
reasonably justified and different definitions of what is essential can also be reasonably
justified. Regardless of how one defines the purpose of education, schools are part of the formal
system that humans have created to teach the young lessons that are necessary for
them to fully participate in the dominant culture. As always, that culture is defined by
social expectations and by available technology.