What is the point of education?
With over twenty years of experience in both teaching and leading schools, EDP’s Director of Education, Daniel Boyd, has one very important question.
Since I was 6 years old, I wanted to be a teacher. I can still remember the day. My teacher was shouting at my class, something she did daily. She was very strict; she didn’t seem to enjoy being a teacher and she was telling the class how badly behaved we were.
We weren’t a bad class. We were just children who wanted to enjoy ourselves. I remember looking at her and thinking to myself; ‘I want to be a teacher when I’m older, so I can do this job better than you!’
Being a teacher is something that stuck with me ever since. My school life continued, and I graduated from University with a Bachelor of Education fifteen years later. 21 years old and about to spend the next twenty-one years working in educational institutions across the globe. School is the only thing I have ever known my whole life.
All this leads me to a question I have asked myself and others many times, what is the point of education?
Most responses are usually the same:
Get good grades
Go to a good university
Get a good job
This usually leads to my follow up question. What is a good job?
Is teaching a good job? I’d like to think so. You can shape or even change lives. You can inspire others to follow their dreams and chart their own path to success. To me, a good job is it something that will match your ambition. Something you will find joy and fulfilment in. The expression is, do something you love, and you will never work a day in your life. That is the goal.
Education helps people achieve those goals. The point of education is to get the best out of people.
So how do you get the best out of someone?
Did my teacher get the best out of me when I was 6 years old? No. I was not engaged in learning.
And that word is the key to it all. To get the best out of your students, all students need to be engaged.
That means you must find ways to get their attention and motivate them to want to learn. To have that desire to improve their own level of understanding. To see how they could be better at what they do. Something that affects students of all ages.
You’re asking yourself, ‘so what does this have to do with me?
If you are reading this, then you will likely be a part of the education profession. Our company is for educators by educators remember. But that could also apply to all members of your education community, from volunteers to parents. Teachers to governors.
I joined the EDP Group to make a real difference. The world has changed immensely during the last twenty-one years. For me, there are many aspects of education that have been left behind. I can see a real opportunity with EDP and especially, TeachUp to make the systems change that are very much needed in global education.
Firstly, we practice what we preach. Our courses are engaging.
Secondly, we offer opportunities to develop relevant skills
Third, our courses are designed to help all members of the community.
Fourth, courses broken into conveniently timed sections
Finally, our courses have practical applications in the real world.
Why EDP and TeachUp?
When I was 6 years old, I learned a very important lesson, ‘what not to do’. How you can turn a negative experience into a positive. You learn from mistakes, that’s how you grow. This is something I have continued to do throughout my life and something I bring with me to EDP and TeachUp.
We have all experienced many online platforms that offer training courses, and our courses aim to offer what the others don’t:
Regionally specific content.
That means all our courses are designed with different countries in mind. We have considered the social norms, laws and beliefs of each country we offer products to
Multilingual approach
Our courses are offered in several languages. Speaking from experience, I want me staff to access training in their primary language to ensure there is a focus on the content.
Accessible to all
The most important aspect for me. Support for all teachers of all nationalities in all countries. No one is excluded from what we have to offer.
Daniel’s Final Thought….
I firmly believe what we have to offer can make a real change to your community. We can give the families of your school real insight into the world of education and improve the level of communication and collaboration you have.
We can help develop all support staff and volunteers of your community, allowing them to become integral to your operation and potentially take the next steps in their own development in a career of education.
The guidance and training we offer to teachers really have them at their core. Relevant learning, easy to access, broken into manageable sections, with outcomes that can be instantly applied to any area of their daily schedule.
We want to bring learning communities together. We want to help you raise standards. We want to make a difference.
