On the other hand, I am well aware that children and adolescents might curtail their own aspirations and make choices in their school years that would limit their opportunities later as adults. One role of education is to insure that doors of opportunity are not closed early and that students are challenged to dream and set high goals for themselves. Meaning is something people create for themselves. Teachers are not the holders of all knowledge that they impart to students who come as empty vessels to be filled. As teachers, we can bring information to the classroom, but what students do with that information is both an individual choice and a cooperative process.
Children make meaning with their peers, their families, and their world.
The best teaching comes when educators realize that it is a shared endeavor. We can know what meaning is being made only as we listen to our students and get to know them in the context of their lives. What we teach must be relevant for them to make meaning at all. Education in societies throughout the world and throughout history has been the mechanism for the transmission of culture . That is the case in the American educational system today.