At some point in our lives we have all asked ourselves the same question: "what is the purpose of getting an education?" During my primary education years, I often found school boring and a poor use of time. I waited in vain for the day I would graduate from high school and then go to college. However, as I got through college, I learned that my education was what I got out of it. When I put in the most effort, I got the most out of my education, which was much more than just factual knowledge. Getting an education comes with a number of benefits, but it's up to us to find out what they are. Everyone has their own opinion on what they believe education is and should be. Your parents might think of it as a daycare until you get to high school and then they might think of it as a place to get a college degree and soon move out. Your grandparents might think of it as a place where you go to learn things you won't need in life because they never needed them. Political leaders may see this as an economic advantage over another country. The list goes on, but as a student I believe there are many educational purposes; it's more than one thing, but many things that combine into what education really is. One of the roles of public schools is to promote the principles and standards of our society, which have been almost forgotten. Today it is assumed that school is a place where you go to learn history and mathematics, but it is much more. School teaches us what our leaders are too busy to explain. By this I mean that our teachers are the ones who educate us about our government and our society. They are our teachers who govern us about what we can and cannot do. Our government officials are…middle of the road…never gained anything from education, why would you continue like this? In part, “education must be practical” (McMannon 8) and we must recognize this. Works Cited Fulghum, Robert. Everything I really needed to know I learned in kindergarten. New York: Ballantine Books, 1986. Hudson, William E. and Robert H. Trudeau. “Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning.” An Essay on the Institutionalization of Service-Learning: The Genesis of the Feinstein Institute for Public Service 2.1 (1995): 150-158.McMannon, Timothy. “The Changing Purposes of Education and Schooling.” McMannon, Timothy and John Goodlad. The public purpose of education and school. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997. Nussbaum, Martha. "Cultivating the Imagination: Literature and Art." Not for profit: why democracy needs the humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.