What is the purpose of education?

I really think this is an important question. As I move about and talk to teachers and educational leaders, I hear a lot of stress. We are asked to take on more and more every year. This year our province is bringing in the first wave of new curricula that ask a shift of us. I believe that if we don't think long and hard about our purpose, we will continue to try and do it all and fail at doing much of it. Not for lack of trying or caring, but for lack of time to come to an understanding of what we are doing.
There are all kinds of statements being made that our students will not be equipped to deal with the world they will live in as adults. We can transfer that to our present world as educators. We are not equipped to move our students into that world. Over my career as a teacher, life has changed. Students are different, parents are different, knowledge is much more abundant and specific. We are asked to teach more and more while being told our student's learning is lagging behind. Yet we still teach the way we were taught, with a few minor adaptations. What are we to do?
Far be it from me to have a answer, but perhaps if we clarified our purpose it would help. If we are told that we need to be clear about outcomes and objectives for the lessons and units we prepare, why would we not also be clear as a profession about our ultimate aim of educating.

Okay, enough of a rant. I'm taking a risk and trying to define what I believe should be the goal of education.

The purpose of education is to teach students to think.

If students know how to think deeply they will become contributing members of society; to care about learning, to care about themselves and others, and to care about the global world.