Why Do We Need School?

Several years ago, on a cold winter morning when the warmth of a comfortable bed seemed quite a bit more desirable than getting up, stepping out onto a chilly floor, and getting ready for school, one of my children asked me the question, “Dad, why do I have to go to school?”  I don’t remember exactly what I said but it probably resembled some of the cliché answers that parents give to their children when this question comes up:  “because you need to learn,” or “because you need to be able to get a good job,” or if I happened to be a bit more philosophical, “because it will make you a better person.”

This question still gets asked a million times over, especially at this time of year when summer comes to an end and students across the country prepare to return to their schools to begin anew the process of learning and education.  In his book, The End of Education, Neal Postman details two problems we have to deal with when it comes to schooling our children.  The first one – the one on which we tend to focus most of our attention as a society – is what he calls an engineering problem.  The engineering problem deals with the “how” of education.  What the best “techniques” and methods are that we can find to educate students.  And though this problem generates tons of research and data, no one can define with certainty the best way to know things, to feel things, to remember things, to apply things, and to connect things.  A “one best” technique or method for educating a student may be out there, but I don’t think we can say that it has been discovered as of yet because the evidence shows that in many ways our education system is failing.

The other problem has to do with the question my child and many other children have asked.  It is a metaphysical problem and it deals with the question of why.  What is the reason for school?  As Nietzsche famously noted, “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.” For school to work, for school to make sense, it must have an “end” that inspires.  It must have a good “why.”  Postmodernism has destroyed many of the narratives that have traditionally given meaning, purpose, and most importantly, an answer to the question of why.  Now, the best answer we can come up with as a society is “you go to school so you can get a good job.”  A capitalist answer for an educational system designed to create good commercial participants.  Unfortunately, that answer lacks sufficient inspiration because people can find and have found commercial success outside of school.  Maybe education isn’t just about, or even primarily about finding a good job.  Maybe education is about finding your purpose in life.  Maybe education is about becoming who God created you to be.  Maybe education is about developing and perfecting the gifts that God has given to you.  Maybe education is about more than making a living – maybe it’s about making a life.

This article was originally published in the Kenosha News.

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