Is it to impart knowledge and information? We have Google for that; it’s easier than ever to acquire both.

Is it to lecture and teach the right answer to put down on a test? What happens when a question or problem has multiple possible answers? Or no right answer?

Education, and by extension a teacher’s job, is meant to teach students how to think critically, to judge the truth or fallacy of an argument or piece of information, to garner understanding. It is not to answer the student’s question, “will this be on the test?”

At the most fundamental level, a teacher’s purpose is to teach her students how to learn and to nurture a life-long love of learning and creativity. It is the job of a teacher to ensure that, when her students have left her tutelage, the students will be able to read, watch, or listen to something; gather correct information from the material; synthesize it into their own understanding; then utilize the knowledge or skill learned.

Let us all remember our true purpose each day.