what is a graduate education?

This is a topic I want to explore more in-depth when I have time (I'm currently scrambling to do readings that the professor assigned before the first day of class). After attending two more "syllabus day" classes, I started to consider what the graduate college wants out of me, and what I want out of it.

What I want:

• to become a better teacher. This includes studying a little bit of theory (but ONLY when discussing it in the context of actual experiences) and a lot of practical stuff. I want strategies. I want examples of successful assessments. I want to study and poke holes in grading systems. I want to think about all the crap I did wrong when I was teaching and to figure out how I'm going to do it better when I go back to teaching in a few years.
• to prepare myself for my Ph.D. Although this is probably a few years (or many years) away, I have a lot of questions to ask. I want to eventually teach pre-service teachers at the college level, and I think that a lot of universities do a shit job of this. I want to figure out how to do it right. 
• One of the classes I went to today (EPSY 400) allows grad students who are taking it for 4 credit hours to do a research project proposal on any topic that relates to learning. I was a bit hesitant about staying in the class (I loathe syllabus days), but this totally open ended project has me hooked. I've got a dozen ideas already, but I'll probably end up studying preservice teacher programs -- as in, what kind of program produces better teachers: theory-based or practical-based? (That definitely needs rewording. I don't remember how to write academically yet.)

What does grad school want out of me? Thus far, it seems to vary depending on the class...

• Writing Studies wants me to be creative, to explore metawriting, and to learn about writing in the context of a buncha sweet topics (social protest, veganism advertising, feminist rhetoric). It wants me to learn about what I want to learn about (in the context of texts).
• Psychology of Learning in Education wants me to know who's who in the land of educational psychologists. It wants me to fight about Piaget and Vygotsky's theories. It wants me to fall in love with the Japanese school system. And the best part, as I mentioned above, it wants me to explore my own ideas in relation to learning. 
• In case you couldn't tell, I seriously can't wait to get started on that proposal. I think it will be hugely helpful since I want to write a dissertation next year.
• Okay, so to recap: thus far, the coolest parts of grad school are where I get to learn about stuff I'm personally interested in and do projects on them. Basically, stuff I always wanted to do when I was teaching, but didn't have the time or support for.
• Sociology of Education: hmm. I think this class wants me to be a sociologist first and an educator second. It wants me to write summaries, which, as a teacher, I kind of cringe at (great for a starter, but c'mon, let me do some critical thinking!) I think....that this class wants me to drop it. Ah well, that's why I signed up for 2 extra classes anyway.