Back to school — a state so many of us are in right now — comes with a mix of emotion. I’ve started my bizarre anticipatory dreams at night, while by day I pause to take deeper, longer breaths. The teachers I know put so much into the calling that the August ramp-up requires extra mental, physical and emotional preparation. We lace up our metaphorical boots and cinch up the straps of our literal backpacks. Mine is currently burdened with notebooks, course texts and the loose assembly of pens I’ve lost at the bottom.

But I am especially mindful of our students. They enter halls and classrooms flooded with the annual ether of nervousness edged with anticipation. There are possibilities greeted by wide-open eyes. We’re going to learn to read; we’re going to understand pilgrimages over passes and across plains; we could get to play with numbers; we could learn about the growth of microbes and trees and ourselves.

Those selves, my students included, will get to a point a few weeks into the term when their questions will orbit around why they’re there. One reason: to know the difference between “their,” “there” and “they’re.” But school is much more than this, though it might initially mean different things to different people.

The first purpose I hear from legislators or read in opinion pieces is how school provides pathways to employment and builds a workforce. This idea is braided into policies and initiatives I’m happy to support. Jobs lead to prosperity and well-being, something we should all want for one another.

However, while I’m confident education from primary through graduate levels prepares people for careers, this isn’t all it does. When I hear “When am I going to need this?” or critiques about coursework not applying to someone’s vocation, I think we’re applying an overly narrow purpose to school.

Education also opens a space where we learn about and develop our diverse selves. While teaching physics, I get to watch people come to grips with the innumerable particles contributing to the physical person and the immensity of the space beyond reach. This is mundane, though, in comparison to discovering and refining what we believe and finding purpose.

Who am I, with my Scottish DNA wrestling with Irish genealogy, and how did I get here? How do I communicate my ideas? How does my past shape my future? What are my gifts? How do I thrive as a human? Consider dentistry as a solid career choice, but don’t settle for this upon realizing your passion for musical theater, ancient cultures or astrophotography. In school, we figure out the self.

More than the individual, though, is the relationship we have through the inclusion of others. In the collective, I learn so much about what little I know based on my own limited experience. A work of fiction, a piece of history, even a scientific finding — these all connect us to our own humanity and co-humans, not to mention the natural world.

Economists help me understand how my purchases are part of a global network. I formulate a better sense of the resources of Earth by talking to geologists. Anthropology helped me understand that I take my own culture for granted, because that’s the very nature of culture. Throughout, I recognize that my place in this world depends on the world at large; and the world at large and its future depends on me. I vote not only in consideration of the interests of myself but of my entire community. I should know something about how that all works.

This all starts around kindergarten, where we etch crayon lines onto paper that will eventually become ideas for a monthly guest piece in the local paper. We assemble blocks to understand how things are summed. And, most important to me, we assemble together and figure out how we’re going to share those crayons and blocks, learn something about playing nicely with others and take the time to help out when someone has skinned their knee.

In school, we not only learn to find our voice, we infuse it into conversation and argue a position; we even learn to sing the solo melody as well as parts of collective, equitable harmonics. I’m excited to assemble the choir and start the new year.

Adam Johnston is a professor of physics and director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at Weber State University, where he helps prepare future teachers and supports educators throughout Utah.

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