What is the purpose of Education? How has this belief influenced your pedagogy?

Unfortunately, just as I was about to post my response to this question, I somehow managed to delete it instead. I am frustrated! Essentially, what I said is that the first idea that comes to mind when I visit this question is I believe from Thomas Jefferson and that is that democracy depends on an informed public. As trite as it sounds, I do believe that knowledge is power and that education should serve to better one's life, to empower, to create opportunities, to open doors, and should be pursued for the training of the mind or for the joy of it. Much like the different stances that one takes to different reading tasks, education serves different purposes at various times depending on the nature of the pursuit. Essentially, I want to help students learn how to learn, how to access information, and how to reason. Moreover, I believe that education serves to perpetuate a common culture and that it is valuable in and of itself.

These beliefs (because they are a combination of beliefs) influence my pedagogy in that I believe that the best environment for promoting autonomy, responsibility and striving for excellence occurs in the Inquiry based or Constructivist classroom. Students need ownership, time, access to resources, relevance and rigor to care and to have "buy in." Students work for personal excellence rather than for a grade when these qualities are present in a classroom because they are valued and their ideas are valued. This type of curriculum requires a great deal of planning and structure but are incredibly rich because students have input, choice, and ownership over their learning. Many people have the misperception that these classrooms are "anything goes" but what they don't understand is all the research and planning that goes into a unit of study before the students ever begin. Teachers must be highly prepared and purposeful when planning lesson or units of study. I am always striving to create a classroom where students are actively engaged in the learning process and I have experienced success with Constructivism.