ENGAGEMENT AND PHILOSOPHY

This article explores these two keywords through the approach of placing “school” on a continuum between the two extremes of a transactional, instrumental organisation and a transformational community. The variety of stakeholder groups are redefined to include personification of abstract concepts and the model of community is considered including these stakeholders. School is looked at here as a verb rather than a noun and the extent to which school must by definition be, or have the form of, an organisation, is seen as a manifestation of the will of the community, with the levers of transaction pulled by the Head on behalf of the community. The 1994 UNESCO international conference on education provides a framework for discussion about culture and the purpose of education, which is reconciled with the evolving model described and envisioned in this short paper.