Education has always been deemed important for an individual to obtain, as parents believe that a good education will help prepare children for a better and successful future. In most instances, children are sent to school to change their destiny and improve their life circumstance compared with what the parents endured. In the past, boys were encouraged to get an education, while the girls were left in the care of the mothers. The belief then was that girls and women do not have anything to contribute to society, thus, must be relegated back in the house doing household chores. However, this notion changed as more women pushed for equality in education and successfully proved that their intelligence can also match those of men's. The same thing goes for persons with disabilities who were once thought of as individuals who have nothing much to contribute to society (UNICEF). Now, education is available regardless of gender, race, and social status, among others. With so many reasons for ensuring the children are well educated, this paper will focus on two major purposes of education only. I believe that the main reasons for education are to respond to the educational needs of children as well as to ensure their employability when the right time comes.
My conviction is to make education available to all children in order to equip them about the daily happenings that occur in life. Similar to John Dewey's stance on the Theory of Experience (Neill, 2005), for me, individuals are made up differently, which gives them unique experiences when it comes to learning and understanding concepts taught in schools. Regardless if the methods and program syllabus are the same in all schools, and given that teachers will all present the instructions uniformly, the way an individual will accept and process information will be different from one another.
While Dewey is a staunch supporter of progressive education, which is often misunderstood as Dewey's way of going against the more traditional methods of teaching, he makes a clear point in saying that freedom, while an important concept in learning and teaching, is not the only solution to making students understand the lessons as taught by traditional educators. According to Dewey, "learning needs a structure and order, and must be based on a clear theory of experience" (Neill, 2005), whereby experience will help design the system of education. In this regard, Dewey introduces the concept of "continuity" and "interaction", which says individuals build upon one experience after another and that in all of life's situations, people learn something from the experience, whether good or bad experiences (International Centre for Educators' Learning Styles). The take away is the lessons learned, which are all carried over into the future. Dewey further expounds on this point by arguing that what happened in the past continues to interact with the individual's present life. Thus, if a student had wonderful experiences in school, acquires new skills, experiences freedom of expression and creativity (ICELS), the student will always want to go to school as compared with an individual who only had negative experiences in school. As Dewey asserts, teachers may not have control over the experiences of a child, but having the understanding on where a child's attitude toward school is coming from can help create new and better educational experiences for the child. (Neill, 2005).
Another educator of note is George Counts who espouses my belief that another purpose of education is to prepare students for employability upon completion of their education, that education is a "means to an end" which students can use to help change the ills in society (Romanish). Although Counts refutes Dewey's claims that the purpose of education is to prepare individuals for a life of independence, Counts also presents a valid point in saying that education must be for the purpose of preparing individuals to become assets to the society they belong to, that after their education, they must be able to contribute to society, in general.
These stances on education are very much related to the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians in Australia. According to the society, one of the goals of Australia is to promote equality among gender, culture, sexual orientation, ethnicity, location, and health or disability, among others. This goes well with Dewey and Count's views on the purpose of education as well as for whom education is for. My perspective on the subject is that education should not look at any of the aforementioned aspects considering that we are already in the 21st century and modern times call for modern views.
Now, regardless of gender and culture, we see women having the same aspirations as men. In fact, even in the corporate world, women excel in areas that were previously thought of as male-dominated fields. There are women managers everywhere and who perform well, or even better, than some men do. In terms of culture, people living in previously unknown countries are as talented and as intelligent as their foreign counterparts are. This simply shows that when children are provided with the environment to learn and develop their skills, they are bound to excel and discover their talents, which they can use to further their educational experience. The better educational experiences they have, they better prepared they become for their future. In addition, these attributes help children develop self-confidence as they become active thinkers and members of society, instead of passive receivers of what leaders tell them to do.
Using Count's ideas on education, the same scenario provides an answer to his claims that with education, children become better prepared for employment and as successful members of society. As they become technologically adept, their skills become at par with the global requirements for employees. They also learn how to be individuals with high morals and one who understands how to correlate with people coming from different nationalities. As this happens, they open themselves up for more opportunities for learning, which, this time, occurs outside the walls of the classroom.
Therefore, in my opinion, Dewey's stance on education, as well as Count's views, should go together, and not against each other. When children learn, develop their skills, and gain positive experiences in school, it inspires them to learn more and achieve more. It helps in unleashing their creativity and their need to express their ideas. Their thirst for more knowledge becomes their armor in preparing them for whatever situation they might find themselves in. Thus, children who gain positive experiences in school become life-long learners who understand their role in society and how they can impart their knowledge to the future generation. In this sense, education becomes not only for the benefit of the individual who possesses the knowledge, but for all those people the individual gets in contact with. As exchanges of knowledge and information occur, more people learn from each other and the world they live in.
References
International Centre for Educators' Learning Styles [ICELS], n.d. John Dewey's Philosophy of Experience and Education. International Centre for Educators' Learning Styles. Available at: <http://www.icels-educators-for-learning.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=68> [Accessed 30 May 2013].
Neill, J., 2005. John Dewey, the Modern Father of Experiential Education. Wilderdom – Experiential Learning & Experiential Education. Available at: <http://www.wilderdom.com/experiential/ExperientialDewey.html> [Accessed 25 May 2013].
Romanish, B., n.d. George S. Counts: Leading Social Reconstructionist. Vitae Scholasticae, 9(1). Available at: <http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-326657945/george-s-counts-leading-social-reconstructionist> [Accessed 29 May 2013].
UNICEF, n.d. Achieve Universal Primary Education. Unicef Millennium Development Goals. Available at: <http://www.unicef.org/mdg/education.html> [Accessed 29 May 2013].
