In this article the author has followed an approach of "epistemological defamiliarisation" by looking with new eyes at education. The author wants to follow an approach that "challenges the prevailing common sense" in the hope that it will lead to a new vantage point from where a fresh view of the educational landscape is possible. In the first part of this article the author develops a rich account of education that is different to the prevailing dominant instrumentalist notions of education in South Africa. In the second part the author explores the implications of this alternative view of education for teacher education.