What Are Our Priorities?

I've been re-reading the Harry Potter books this summer. (I feel like my children are peers of the Harry Potter characters - having grown up with the books!) Each time I read these books I have a different revelation. This time I am fixated on the words to the Hogwarts School Song:

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald,
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling,
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we've forgot,
Just do your best, we'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot."

How many of us can boast of a school song that emphasizes learning? The learning of old and young together? Life-long learning?

How about our mission statements and goals? Do they emphasize learning?

And how do we measure that learning? Merely scores in a spreadsheet? Or should we temper that with other indicators of learning? Participation, community involvement, curiosity, relationships, interests? Do we all need to learn the same things?

I don't have the answers, but I do know we better be thinking about it. What are our priorities? What should they be?