Purpose of education – job skills or life skills?

What we learn and how we learn has a big impact on the way we think and live. So perhaps we need to be taking a closer a look at what we are teaching our kids and how we are teaching them. Good education is important but I would argue that our current system of schooling does not provide this. Most schooling systems involve locking children inside for the better part of the day in a structured curriculum focussing on readying students for the workforce. Great for imposing information but not so great for nurturing creativity, emotional intelligence or more practical life skills.

In a world in dire need of a new way of thinking and being, I would say it is time that we start valuing imagination and creativity. I don’t know about you but I certainly never use my year 12 calculus but could have probably befitted more from learning how to grow vegetables, to mend clothes and to think creatively and critically.

Perhaps it is time we start creating more schools like the Small School in Devon that aims to “educate the whole person in mind, body and spirit”.

further reading:
Do you want school or education? by Robert J Burrows

The death of imagination by Dave Pollard