Education's Purpose

It was one big, fat, stinking lie.

She promised I was wrong. She swore she was telling the truth. The wooden schoolhouse cutouts circling her neck and kitty cat sweater made her deception all the more convincing. Even as she peered at me through the crescent lenses balancing on her nose, I knew. I saw her chalkboard scribbles of cosigns and quadratic functions for what they were: propaganda. Despite Mrs. Kurlee’s insistence otherwise, I knew I would never use pre-calculus in “real life.”

Fifteen years later, I am still not backing down. I have yet to find a satisfying use for my knowledge of rational exponents. Looking back at my primary and high school education, I am faced with a sea of useless knowledge.

The Romans would host great feats and vomit in-between courses so they could continue eating. Why thank you 8th grade World History.

The poet Christopher Marlowe was stabbed in the head during a bar brawl. Lovely 12th grade English.

Hippo milk is pink. Well, how special 2nd grade science.

I am not suggesting that my education was pointless, or even subpar. To the contrary, I am very grateful for my first twelve years of schooling. However, it is not the content I absorbed that has had a lasting impact. Instead, it is the process I took in which to understand it.

I am hard-pressed to find an instance where my base understanding of pre-calculus has advanced my well-being. However, the sweat, determination, frequent failure, frustration, elation, reflection, and epiphany that Mrs. Kurlee insisted upon every second period are invaluable. Mrs. Kurlee did not teach me to be a mathematician; she taught me to be a worker and a thinker.

In our schools, content should a vehicle carrying our students to a larger purpose. Education is not about having the right answers. It is about knowing how you got them.