My immediate response to ‘what is the purpose of education?’ is that it is ‘to enable people to engage with, learn from, and form a considered opinion’ to exactly that type of question.

The circularity of my response comes from a deeply rooted belief in the power of reflective action-learning.  I have time and again witnessed the transformational impact of this type of learning on young people, adults, and organisations alike.  My recent involvement in a number of inspiring opportunities provides the ingredients for my current engagement and learning around the purpose of education, but as with all action-learning the final picture remains an ever moving feast.  Each of the following provides a nuance of what I believe education to be about, but none provides an answer.

What is Learning For? was a year's exploration with eight inspiring educators into why we learn, how we learn, and what is learning for?  We looked at this from the UK, but more significantly from Kerala in South India - a state with phenomenal educational attainment and insight.  A lasting imprint for me is the dissonance between a UK-based debate over what makes an ‘outstanding lesson’ and the words of a Keralan state official informing us that ‘teachers are the real dreamers in society, because politicians can only dream in 5 year periods’
Education is about: risk, ambition, people, dreaming, creativity, self-belief

Time 2 Think emerges from work around critical literacy and in particular heightened awareness of self, others and the wider world, in shaping our lifeworlds.  This work has reminded me of the significance of dialogic learning and of the incredibly restrictive limits of time that dominate our education system.
Education is about: listening, conversing, contesting, thinking, perspectives, diversity

Learning through Values has provided me with an opportunity to dig deep into my own lifeworld and to support others to do the same.  Building on the work of Common Cause, a number of educators are now combining to consider the centrality of values to our own sense of being and belonging.  How are values aired, shared and prepared by our education system and how aware of this are we?
Education is about: values, understanding, responsibility, connections, living together, change

Learning co-operatively brings a group of disparate organisations and individuals together to explore the power of co-operative learning.  I feel at home in this world of education as co-constructed, inclusive and fair and so too, it would seem, do the young people who benefit. There is something in this...
Education is about: participation, respect, collaboration, equity, ownership, trust, choice

As befits my own moveable feast I do not wish to impose a closing statement as to the purpose of education, but rather invite you to assimilate these vignettes of my recent experience with your own experiences and insight.  However in true circular fashion, I will risk to posit that perhaps a purpose of education is to give us the confidence and ability to do so?

498 words

This post is a contribution to the Purpos/ed challenge 'What is the purpose of education?'  You can find more information and other posts at http://purposed.org.uk/2012/04/500words-take-2/

Rob Bowden, Lifeworlds Learning

Have had a fascinating day engaging with the Common Cause research ideas thanks to Richard Hawkins from PIRC and the MELA network - great room to learn in.

I have come away with a head full of ideas for my own practice, for Lifeworlds as an organisation, and for education and learning generally.

What is learning for? Is it for anything? What values are central to learning and education and where are they on a values map or circumplex? How might discussion of values aid our educational visions for the future?

Michael Gove speech for Lewisham schoolkids - worth watching his incredible skill at engaging them?!

I am facing the new academic year with zeal and vigour, ready to go, and respond to all the challenges that have been set to change and adapt to the fluid educational landscape.

Bring it on!

Rosie:

I've been reading up on the UNESCO Decade for Education for Sustainable Development, and noting that member states hold the responsibility for ensuring that ESD is integrated into all aspects of school life, but also a broad range of other learning settings, including workplaces, because after all this is the future of the world and the human race we are talking about.

All sounds downright sensible to me. Naturally, we care about each other and the place we live in.

But no no no, I have to remind myself that all educational initiatives that promote social justice and sustainability, care for each other and the planet are being deprioritised, withdrawn or simply disappearing without reference or mention. Our state considers that we should be educated or instructed in the traditional way, because this is how it has always been done. As if there is nothing wrong with our society. As if there is no inequality; no social tensions exist. The country culpable in slavery, colonial cruelty and much of the underbelly of globalization now considers it should educate 'as it has always done'. Because it is cheaper. It is cheap indeed, to not engage with our world today, and not to take the job of bringing up children and young people in this world seriously.

Perhaps I am getting a little too politiical in my thinkign about education and its role, and I know that makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable, so maybe I should stop here.....

I'm really excited about a project we have coming up, to provide support for a group within the Wroclaw BRAVE Kids festival. It sounds like an incredibly powerful and exciting festival, bringing together people from 'different worlds and dimensions' (Creator Grzegorz Bral) and asks people to be brave enough to enage with traditions, rituals and ways of life, in their own experience and from others' experience, focussing on acceptance and learning.

The project poses a number of fairly fundamental challenges for us at Lifeworlds, as it sounds inspiring and challenging, definitely creative, and we have been commissioned to bring in some critical dimensions to support the Wroclaw residents who are hosting and working with visiting artists. Where do you start? Groups of children are visiting from traumatic and problematic life situations from Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, and the families hosting may have little or no experience before.

How do we as an organisation support the tremendously brave, as the title purposefully suggests, efforts to promote intercultural dialogue, yet ensuring that more 'good' than harm occurs from throwing together so many people?

Luckily the commissioning project workers and festival staff are very supportive and value critical engagement. They ask us to somehow show people that our minds can always be opened more, even if we believe we are already open-minded. To understand that we do not know everything, that our knowledge is partial, political and tainted with power dimensions. It looks like we might need to reach for OSDE methodologies, and for our latest work on these, in the Time 2 Think project.

Be great to hear comments and suggestions about this, and will definitely post back as the project takes shape.

www.bravefestival.pl - there is a tab on the right for an English version of the site, which is skilfully written, translating complex ideas deftly...

Rosie Wilson

Lifeworlds Learning

www.lifeworldslearning.co.uk