I’ve been pondering this BIG question again- you would think after quarter of a century I would have answer! the truth is I have many answers and perhaps all are valid depending on the context.

I even stumble now on whether I mean ‘education’ or whether I mean ‘schooling’ and indeed whether these are interchangeable.

But I guess, to my point.

I hear and see much about workforce readiness, about preparation for the world of work, creating industry-like scenarios within schools for students to support students to understand the nature-of-work, ensuring ‘business tools and processes’ are accessible  etc etc  Now, these aren’t bad things and, placed back in school-land I would certainly fold these real-world contexts into learning, but…

It got me thinking to one of my first ‘lessons’ as a teaching student where we were challenged to think about students as ’empty vessels’ waiting to be filled and if the purpose of education was to fill the vessels.

And is this an exercise in preparing by finding gaps in knowledge and skills and filling them or, is this more?