282 — What is the purpose of education?

Is 'education' a liberating force that prepares children for a rapidly changing world? Or a system of control that kills their enthusiasm for learning.

On this week's Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Ross D are joined by Patrick Cootes, Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer of Mindstone, to debate. We discuss:

• Traditional perspectives on education
• The purpose of education
• How systems reinforce one another.

During the discussion, Ross D mentioned a podcast segment about students who wondered what it would be like to live on the moon. This was a reference to The Ezra Klein Show: nytimes.com/2022/02/11/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-johann-hari.html 

Ross G referenced the Freakonomics episode 'Freakonomoics goes to college: Part 1': freakonomics.com/podcast/freakonomics-goes-to-college-part-1 

And research from Pew: pewresearch.org/social-trends/2011/05/15/chapter-5-the-monetary-value-of-a-college-education 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross D shared the story of Lena Forsen, covered by Wired: wired.com/story/finding-lena-the-patron-saint-of-jpegs

And the story of Shirley Page, covered by 99% Invisible: 99percentinvisible.org/episode/shirley-cards 

Ross G shared trivia from the Martin Scorsese film Casino: imdb.com/title/tt0112641/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv

For more from Patrick, see: mindstone.com

Patrick has also written about education at: medium.com/@patrick_85173/the-future-of-learning-3196b05452a3 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Ross Garner - @RossGarnerMT
• Ross Dickie - @RossDickieMT
• Patrick Cootes - @MindstoneHQ | LinkedIn