I'm in the middle of watching a video of Michael Wesch doing a version of his "Crisis of Significance" talk, a much-revised version of a talk I first heard him give at ELI, but now moving toward virtual learning environments. A key part of the introductory part of his talk is the question, "What are schools for?"

He observes that faculty can be heard using a sentence like, "Some students are just not cut out for school," then switches "school" for "learning" to get the absurdity "Some students just weren't cut out for learning." The premise of that switch, which he made more explicit in this version than in the ELI version, is of course "School is for learning."

We'd all like to believe that school is for learning, and that's certainly the ideal that I would like to see in the world. But let's try starting to attack the problem by saying, "Okay, it looks like schools really aren't for learning after all."

So what are they for?

Based not on what we'd like the world to be like or on an idealized version of education. In short, school should be for learning, but it's not. So, based on the kinds of things that Wesch observes in his discussion of 'what these walls tell us' and things that we can observe, what is it for, then?
Wesch's talk offers lots of hints and big pictures. But I'm looking for the same kind of one-word fill-in-the-blank for "School is for __________"

Suggestions?