Ask Not What Our Schools Can Do for You
by Lisa HanselJuly 19th, 2013
I’m not the spa vacation type—I can’t get through a 30-minute massage without mentally creating a to-do list. But spending the past several days in a workshop on the democratic purposes of education was, for me, just as relaxing an invigorating as others claim a spa retreat can be.
Discussions started where you would expect, considering the foundational historical and civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed for responsible, active citizenship. Much to my delight, those discussions expanded to include wonder, humility, virtue, craftsmanship, voice, and compromise. We spent time thinking about using Greek myths to question the relative worthiness of courageous acts, exploring humanity’s drive for freedom as depicted in works of art from around the world, and devising simple ways to incentivize student participation in community service. For large chunks of each day, we tuned out the rest of the world and focused on each other’s ideas.
We also focused on ideas from the past. I am especially grateful for this because it filled a large hole in my knowledge of civically minded education: Eleanor Roosevelt’s speech on April 30, 1930, titled Good Citizenship: The Purpose of an Education. Her speech is well worth reading; hopefully these highlights will draw you into the full piece:
What is the purpose of education? This question agitates scholars, teachers, statesmen, every group, in fact, of thoughtful men and women. The conventional answer is the acquisition of knowledge, the reading of books, and the learning of facts. Perhaps because there are so many