During that time I wrote a paper on the Purpose of Education. It is a beginning analysis I had to do in order to begin to understand critical pedagogy. It requires much development, but perhaps it has some points we can use to begin to build a vision for education in the 21st century. I studied critical pedagogy for a long time, and necessarily had to conduct a great deal of research into the history of education, the philosophy of education, and the evolution of critical pedagogy, which led me to backtrack philosophy all the way back to Aristotle and Plato. It also required a look into history, the evolution of countries, their economies, governments, and industries. See also Philosophical Foundations.
We must realize, and our students must understand, that we cannot move toward a vision of the future until we understand the socio-historical context of where we are now. Where are we? What events led us to be where we are? How can this inform our development of a vision for the future and how we want to get there?
A clear articulation of the purpose of education for the 21st century is the place to begin. Creating a vision of where we want to go requires us to ask the question - why? What is the purpose of education? What do we need to do to accomplish that purpose?