To me, simply put, the purpose of education is to learn to love learning. One of the things that concerns me the most about education today is that kids complain about being bored (perhaps students today are just now willing to say that out loud when in the past the weren't) and that they aren't engaged in their education.
If we don't encourage and instill the love of learning to our students, I believe we will never be 'successful' in education. While I might be challenged on this, as a classroom teacher I was successful at getting students to stop saying things like "I just can't do math" or "I hate writing", not out of fear, but because I challenged them, told them it would be hard, but that I believed in them and was willing to support them wherever they were in their learning. The results were remarkable.
When questioned later in the year, I heard comments like "Well I don't love writing, but it's okay and I'm getting better at it," and "Thanks. I didn't know I could learn math." In overcoming these thoughts about themselves as learners, they were set up to learn anything, because they had experienced that they could change. To me, that is the crux of engaging my students, which comes with the utmost vulnerability as a teacher and as a student. We have to have a community of learners that trust each other, that are willing to fail, learn, unlearn, relearn, and grow. If we don't have community, we'll never be able to build this love of learning.
That's part of why I'm so excited for this #IMMOOC, because I get to build this community with new people and not be afraid to try new things and grow myself.
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