School Education for What

June 4, 2011 ZHANG Yang (Allen) 4421293

June is coming, and July is not far away. For Chinese graduates, they become more and more busy and panic for seeking a job during these two months. June and July are to be seen as job-search months in China. Sending CVs as much as possible and not giving up any interviews, most of the graduates are now trying their best to do the last struggle to grab a job position before leaving campus. Most of graduates claim they can not find a suitable job. I still remembered my surprise when I read the news that a student had to sell pork in a market after graduating from the most famous university--Peking University. How ridiculous it is. People spend the first 20 year of the life to study and accept higher education, but can not find a job in their major area. As a graduate in education area, I can not help thinking what is education for? What’s the purpose of education?

According to Sadovnik et al. (2006, p. 30), the conservative perspective sees the purpose of education as to “socialize children into the adult roles necessary to the maintenance of the social order”. On the contrary, the liberal perspective sees the purpose of education as “enabling the individual to develop his or her talents, creativity, and sense of self”. As far as I am concerned, I agree with the former. I believe the initial purpose of education should be socialization. Education especially schooling should help students become right social roles.

Socialization is the process by which individuals acquire the knowledge, skills, and character traits that enable them to participate as effective members of groups and society (Brim, 1966). According to Roberta M. Berns, the school’s function is as a socializing agent (Robert, 2010, p.227). The school’s function as a socializing agent is that it provides the intellectual and social experiences from which children develop the skills, knowledge, interest, and attitudes that characterize them as individuals and that shape their abilities to perform adult roles.

The function of education is to make educatee acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to become self-sufficient as well as able to participate effectively in society. Education, especially school education, is to prepare educatee for their later occupational roles and to select, train, and allocate them into the division of labor. The degree to which schools directly prepare students for work varies form society to society, but most schools have at least an indirect role in this process.

For a new generation, they were born in a certain society. The primary task they first to confront is to know the society and adapt to the current life. That is to be socialized actively to survive. That why people themselves want to learn practical knowledge or technology to be more useful in a certain society. Most of people choose distance education, continuation courses in colleges or other educational institutions is just a good example.

It is no doubt that education should not ignore the development of students or the individual’s characteristics. According to Sadovnik et al., existentialists believe that education should stress individuality, focusing on the needs of individuals, both cognitively and affectively (Sadovnik et al., 2006, p. 176). Here, what are the needs of individuals in existentialists’ theory? Individualism supporters may give an answer that “talents, creativity, and sense of self”. However, I have another question, why they need these? In other words, what they need these things for? The answer is for pursuing a good life in the current society. Therefore, the finial aim of helping students acquire higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, evaluation and synthesis is make them more useful for serving society. We can see that schooling which focus on the development of individual is still for society.

Purpose of education as one of the basic issues in education inevitably arouses people’s debate. From the discussion above, I am convinced that the purpose of education is to socialize children into the adult roles necessary to the maintenance of the social order. In other words, education is for socialization. During the process of education, educatees acquire the knowledge, skills, and character traits that enable them to participate as effective members of groups and society. The necessary skills and knowledge which make educatee become self-sufficient as well as able to participate effectively in society must be taught.

References

Brim, O. G. (1966). Socialization through the life cycle. In O.G. Brim & S. Wheeler (Eds.), Socialization after childhood: Two essays. New York: John Wiley&Sons.

Roberta M. B. (2010). Child, Family, School, Community Socialization and Support. Thomson Learning , Inc.

Sadovnik, A. R., Cookson, P. W. & Semel, S. F. (2006). Exploring education: An introduction to the foundations of education (3^rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.