Education means something different to everyone. For this reason, people have different views on education. For some, education may be very important and for others not so much. However, education is still present in some ways. Education is used for many purposes, such as advancing in the workplace and helping a country compete with other countries. The role that education plays in improving the lives of students is to create democratic citizens; This happens by fostering imagination and the desire to care for children in classrooms. I believe that the purpose of education is to create successful citizens in a democratic society. This means that students not only learn academic standards, but also social skills. Students will be able to be citizens who will improve their society and be a diverse person open to people's differences. This comes with some obstacles, such as the lack of desire to learn new things among teachers and students in the classroom and the worker-as-machine model. The desire to learn new things means that both sides, students and teachers, must have an engaged pedagogy. According to Hooks, engaged teaching means that both parties are willing to learn and grow. Not only are students empowered and encouraged to share things about themselves and learn new things, but teachers are also expected to do these things (21). This is an obstacle because if students and teachers are not willing to learn and grow, it will not be possible to create democratic citizens. This is so because people are not aware of differences and others react and deal with different things in society. This goes hand in hand with the importance of teachers' self-realization in the classroom...... middle of paper ......gs which are necessary to improve the lives of students. Works Cited Gintis, Herbert. “Chapter 1 Beyond the Educational Frontier: The Great Freeze of the American Dream.” Schooling in capitalist America: educational reform and the contradictions of economic life. By Samuel Bowles. New York: Basic, 1976. N. pag. Print.Greene, Maxine. “Teaching as possibility: a light in dark times”. (nd): n. page. Internet. .Hooks, Bell. “Chapter 1 Engaged Pedagogy.” Teaching to transgress: education as a practice of freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994. N. pag. Print.Nussbaum, Martha C. “Chapter 10 Democratic Citizenship and Narrative Imagination.” Why do we educate? : Renew the conversation. Ed. David L. Coulter. Comp. John R. Wiens and Gary D. Fenstermacher. Chicago: National Society for the Study of Education, 2008. 143-57. Print.