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Have you heard of the YANNY vs LAUREL phenomenon sweeping the internet? Apparently it is an age thing! So it got me thinking that maybe as a parent and teacher, I shouldn't be losing my sanity when...

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The campaign group Parents and Teachers for Excellence have been keeping a list since the start of the year of all the calls made on schools to teach something new.

At the last count, they were up to 74 things that various thinktanks, commentators, and journalists would like us to tackle, ranging from teaching pupils about knives in maths to teaching them about the national anthem.

The purpose of schools seems to have been lost: they are now acting as a daycare for children so that parents can work longer hours, as primary agents of socialisation who need to raise children to do the things that parents would once have taken responsibility for or to create model citizens and solve the ills of society.

One of the more common calls is for schools to do more to prepare pupils for the world of work, with the CBI often leading the way. In fact, it seems to be a position that many teachers have some sympathy for with a recent poll found that 71 per cent with teachers agreed the statement that the purpose with education was to prepare pupils for work and only 22 per cent disagreeing with it.

This made my heart sink a little. What seems to be missing from the conversation is the idea that schools might just be there to give children an education and that this education might be an end in and of itself. We have some 10,000 years of recorded history behind us; of amazing scientific discoveries and advancement in understanding of how our world works. We have an incredible global history of art, music, theatre, and literature for them to explore and learn how to appreciate. We have specific skills like computing and design technology for them to learn about. We have a whole world to explore.

We are only ever going to be able to teach them a small sample of all that has been done, discovered and produced so it is important we select what to pass on carefully. We can think of each subject as a hot air balloon that is sinking fast and has room for only five of the six people on board. Who do we keep and who do we lose? What do we consider to be the best of our subject? The material that allows them to make sense of the rest? In geography, I can't teach them about every place, but I can carefully select ones that best exemplify the key ideas they are learning about or that are significant in understanding world events today.

Since we can't teach them everything, we must also teach them how to use this knowledge to go on and make sense of even more of it themselves. We do this not in the hope of just passing on some sort of canon but in the hope that in the future they will be able to add to this rich body of knowledge for the generations that come after them. All of us are standing on the shoulders of giants and discoveries come not out of isolation but through building on what has come before.

This education, this passing on of what has come before us, is our children's inheritance and I would argue that it is the purpose of schools to provide it. This rich education should mean that pupils leave us ready for the adult world because they have become knowledgeable about this world - but that doesn't mean it is the primary purpose.

We are not there to prepare children for work, because being human is more than being a productive economic unit.

We need to stand up and reclaim education as the purpose of schools. If we don't, others will claim schools for their own ends. Gifting the next generation with all that has come before them should be enough. This treasure is an investment that will continue to bear fruit into the future, so let's not allow this inheritance to be squandered in the name of "productivity" and the drab world this will create. Education is too important for that.

Mark Enser is head of geography at Heathfield Community College. His first book, Making Every Geography Lesson Count, is soon to be published by Crown House. He tweets @EnserMark and blogs here.

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'Schools aren't factories merely producing workers'

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The campaign group Parents and Teachers for Excellence have been keeping a list since the start of the year of all the calls made on schools to teach something new. At the last count, they were up to 74 things that various thinktanks, commentators, and journalists would like us to tackle, ranging from teaching pupils about knives in maths to teaching them about the national anthem.

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Mobiles phones are bad for us. We know because every day there is a news story telling us so, or at least it can feel like that.

But no-one ever actually puts their phone down after hearing these reports, right?

What if children told you exactly how your WhatsApping, Instagramming, emailing and news-reading makes them feel?

"I hate my mum's phone and I wish she never had one," is what one primary school child wrote in a class assignment.

American school teacher Jen Adams Beason posted the comment on Facebook, and revealed that four of 21 of her students said they wished mobile phones had never been invented.

Ms Beason, who lives in Louisiana, also posted a picture of the second grade (ages seven to eight) pupil's class work after she asked them to describe something they wish had never been created.

"I would say that I don't like the phone," the child wrote.

"I don't like the phone because my parents are on their phone every day. A phone is sometimes a really bad habit."

The student completed the work with a drawing of a mobile phone with a cross through it and a large sad face saying 'I hate it'.

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The picture was posted last Friday and has been shared almost 170,000 times since, including by shocked parents who are stopping to think twice about their technology habits.

"Wow. Out of the mouths of babes! We are all guilty!" responded one user, Tracy Jenkins.

"Strong words for a second grader! Listen parents," added Sylvia Burton.

Another wrote, "That is so sad and convicting. Great reminder for us all to put those phones down and engage with our kids more."

Other teachers also joined the discussion to add their own experience of children's reaction to their parents' internet use.

"We had a class discussion about Facebook and every single one of the students said their parents spend more time on Facebook then they do talking to their child. It was very eye opening for me," commented Abbey Fauntleroy.

Some parents offered their personal experience of trying to address the problem.

Beau Stermer wrote that he seen his two-year-old son reacting negatively to his dad using his phone: "I've noticed if he and I are playing and my phone rings for something at work, he has nothing to do with me after I get off the phone.

"It kills me. I have made an agreement with myself that if I am playing with him everything else can wait".

However, one mum pointed out that her teenagers were just as bad, often choosing their phone over family time.

A survey carried out in the US in 2017 reported that half of parents surveyed found that using technology disrupted interactions with their child three or more times a day, a phenomenon named 'technoference'.

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Mobiles phones are bad for us. We know because every day there is a news story telling us so, or at least it can feel like that. But no-one ever actually puts their phone down after hearing these reports, right? What if children told you exactly how your WhatsApping, Instagramming, emailing and news-reading makes them feel?