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On the relevance of education...

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So, what’s the purpose and relevance of education?

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Why is it pertinent?

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I think about Jerome Bruner in his “Towards a theory of instruction”

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or “The Process of Education”,

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where he talks about how strange a thing education is.

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Human beings are the species that educates.

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We take our young, we school our young,

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we transmit our culture, we transmit our values,

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we transmit our beliefs,

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as a way of not having to start afresh with each new life,

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we can actually build over time,

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and build in a way that goes beyond an individual life time.

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At the same time, as we build on the past,

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we also have to build in the opportunity and the necessity for innovation.

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And to me, that’s where education is most interesting.

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In that fundamental middle spot between

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serving the past and giving every student tools and inspiration

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to be able to innovate,

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to be able to start afresh and come up with an idea no one has come up with before.

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That to me is the glory of it;

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it’s the vexation of it too,

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because you never know.

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Are you being too much on the cultural conservation?

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Are you being too anarchic?

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But finding that sweet spot in there,

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where that tension is most keenly felt,

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students feel respect for the past because the past has made them.

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At the same time, feeling completely skeptical and wide open,

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and joyously curious about boundless possibilities.

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If you could do both of those, it seems to me you have a real school.