{"id":32,"date":"2011-02-21T11:19:13","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T11:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/?p=32"},"modified":"2011-02-21T12:43:33","modified_gmt":"2011-02-21T12:43:33","slug":"purposeducation-500words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/purposeducation-500words\/","title":{"rendered":"Purpos\/ed &#8211; 500 Words"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/purposed-badge.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-38\" title=\"purposed-badge\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/purposed-badge.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"110\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I was really lucky to know a little about <a title=\"Purpos\/ed Home page\" href=\"http:\/\/purposed.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">Purpos\/ed<\/a> before it was launched &#8211; as I had been talking to <a title=\"Doug Belshaw's Home page\" href=\"http:\/\/dougbelshaw.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Doug<\/a> about the role of parents in education &#8211; and we had been wondering how that might roll into the larger questions of what we believe education is &#8216;for&#8217;. Now we are 3 weeks in, and the <a title=\"Purpos\/ed Contributors\" href=\"http:\/\/purposed.org.uk\/campaigns\/500-words\/contributors\/\" target=\"_blank\">quality and range of the contributions<\/a> so far has been immense, and I am rather nervous of trying to add to it. But, I will. My comments focus on the effect of schools &#8211; but totally take on the point that educationdoes not need to mean schools!<\/p>\n<p>One more caveat &#8211; I do not have time to demonstrate my hippy, dippy, lefty\u00a0 views in 500 words &#8211; or to provide enought evidence for my assertions. Suffice to say that I agree with 99% of the posts so far. But I am not writing to agree &#8211; but to challenge.<\/p>\n<p>I have been mainly or broadly lefty all my life, and do not believe in God or &#8216;like&#8217; organised religion. Yet, life experience has forced me to recognise that there are aspects\u00a0 of two institutions I should hate &#8211; Faith schools and private schools &#8211; that many folk like me (and you &#8211; in all likelihood &#8211; dear reader) would do well to consider when asking what the purpose of education is.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">1 &#8211; Most people believe that Faith Schools to do better than non-demominational schools. I am not going to try to answer why this is, or if it is true &#8211; but there are aspects of religious schooling that people (parents) value above, and alongside, &#8216;standards&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>A clear moral code- that there are rights and wrongs<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Proof of fairness and an experience of respect<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>A shared cultural identity<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>A clear sense of the limits of the self and responsibility to wider community<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I believe that a definition of the purpose of education &#8211; where ever it happens &#8211; should include these.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">2 &#8211; People pay alot of money for Private schools &#8211; even though, on average, kids do no better or worse, academically, at these schools. So what do they pay for?\u00a0 Many kids in these schools are &#8216;inspired&#8217;, given a sense of what &#8216;aspiration&#8217; means, and a belief that that opportunities will come to them (perhaps even a sense of entitlement!). Don&#8217;t we all want this for our kids?<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s include the <strong><em>democratisation of aspiration<\/em><\/strong> in our purpose for education.<\/p>\n<p>I also want my kids challenged by diversity and boredom, to be part of  the crowd, to do all those other things. But, it is not just about what I  want. The real purpose of education should be defined by the learner,  at the time of wanting to learn. We just need to enable that to happen.  Simples.<\/p>\n<p>So, in the political and economic landscape we are in &#8211; we need to move beyond labels (like &#8216;free schools&#8217;) focus on doing &#8211; and get on with doing it &#8216;Right&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>School? Parenting? Being a good Global Citizen? Let&#8217;s just do it. NOW!<\/p>\n<p>This article was written for <a href=\"http:\/\/purposeducation.wikispaces.com\/\">Purpose\/ed<\/a> @purposeducation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was really lucky to know a little about Purpos\/ed before it was launched &#8211; as I had been talking to Doug about the role of parents in education &#8211; and we had been wondering how that might roll into &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/purposeducation-500words\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,5,6],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-500words","tag-puposeed","tag-purposed"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2vDki-w","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/52"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}