The Purpose of School: A Selection from Douglas Rushkoff’s Team Human (2019)

“Public schools were originally conceived as a way of improving the quality of life for workers. Teaching people to read and write had nothing to do with making them better coal miners or farmers; the goal was to expose the less privileged classes to the great works of art, literature, and religion. A good education was also a requirement for a functioning democracy. If the people don’t have the capacity to make informed choices, then democracy might easily descend into tyranny. . . .

One tech billionaire famously offers $100,000 to twenty young people each year to abandon college in order to pursue their own ideas. The message he’s sending to students is clear: if you want to get somewhere significant, don’t worry about school. When we reduce education to its utilitarian function, it may as well be performed by computers. Besides, as the anti-education billionaire would argue, people learn job skills better on the job itself—as interns or entry-level employees. But people who so easily dismiss education have forgotten what school is really for.

A live educator offers more than the content of a course. Human interaction and presence are important components of effective pedagogy. Moreover, a teacher sets an example by embodying the ideals of learning and critical thinking. Possessed by a spirit of inquiry, the teacher enacts the process of learning for students to mimic. The act of mimesis itself matters: one human learning by watching another, observing the subtle details, establishing rapport, and connecting to history. It’s the ancient practice of people imitating people, finding role models, and continuing a project from one generation to the next.”—Douglas Rushkoff, Team Human (2019)