What is education?

The heavy question that is the title of this post is one I think about often, especially at this end of semester. What is education supposed to be? ('Education' as it has come to mean - schools and universities - I mean, not the education we get from everyday life and/or give ourselves.) What is it for? Everybody assumes we need it, but do we really? Does it really take ten or more institutionalised years to equip a person for the modern world? People who really want to learn will learn anyway, and those that don't won't. Right? And most people just want to watch TV, and most will never use what they learned at school.

Sometimes I suspect that the real purpose of education is that the world needs holding pens for inconveniently immature people.

This thought comes to you incomplete because I am too tired to complete it, and was triggered by the approach of grading season in teacher-land and the appalling realization of just how much my students have learned in my classes this semester. I've been looking at their homework and listening to their 'English conversations' and thinking,

So what was that all about then, eh? What was it all FOR?

Poo. Bah. Humbug. I hereby award myself a day off.


(Which is now coming to an end, and I STILL haven't finished marking the homework.)