Education by Scott Bidstrup

Education Isn't Just Dying In America, its Been Dead For A Century

Consider the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. There are many high-school students today who would be unable to even read the transcripts of those debates, much less understand their meaning. Yet in Lincoln's day, the debates drew large crowds of farmers and tradespeople who sat in rapt attention for hours on end, listening to the most technical arguments in obscure political theorizing. How can it be that such people as constituted these crowds, understood political science to such a degree?
They were the 19th century equivalent of what today we would call "trailer trash." These were often among the poorest and least educated in society. They were the herders and the plowmen, the blacksmiths and the wheelwrights, people with only a few years of formal education. Very few had the equivalent of a modern high-school education; most had not even completed primary school. Yet when you read the letters written to home by Civil War soldiers, you cannot help but be struck by the eloquence and understanding of these men. They knew how to write, and more importantly, they knew how to think. A century and a half later, their letters still move us with their deep understanding of the moral dilemmas they faced, and their subtly eloquent descriptions of their suffering and pain. They often made reference to the literary and philosophical figures of classical Greece and Rome. These men, in spite of their humble origins, were truly educated.

Would that after three times as much formal schooling as most of these men had, our modern high school students were even half so literate. This of course, begs the question: Why were these men literate, when modern high school kids are not? Why have we allowed our educational system to deteriorate to such an appalling degree?
It is my opinion that the reason education in America has floundered to such a degree is that a man who understands his rights, who can think critically and analytically, and who can challenge what he is taught is a politically dangerous individual. Such a person understands oppression. He knows the meaning of tyranny. He can figure out for himself when he is being cheated, robbed, and systematically denied his rights and the material wealth he himself has created. In other words, I believe that those who have the gold don't like people questioning who makes the rules, nor do they like questioning of the rules that are made.

It is not surprising to me at all that the collapse of American education began with the rise of the industrial elite of the Robber Baron Era at the end of the Civil War.
What has been called the "factory model" of education was adopted to turn out large numbers of barely literate people who would work in a servile condition in the appalling conditions of the new factories, and who were ignorant enough not to question the justice of working long hours in dangerous and unhealthy conditions for low pay, but educated just enough to do the simple, monotonous tasks that were needed to be done. Of course, this was sold to the American people as a means of "spreading the benefits of public education." The real intention of the new public school system was of course a means of turning out servile workers for the benefit of the rich industrialists who controlled the state legislatures and by extension, the public school system. America has paid a very dear price indeed for the result -- among industrial nations of the world, we have gradually become the least educated, the most politically, economically and philosophically naive, and without a doubt the most provincial and most poorly informed.

And now the religious right have begun to co-opt public education in this country and turn it to their purpose. The result is a nation of school boards afraid to teach honest science as it is, afraid to teach the basics of republican (small 'r') democracy and the principles of civics that underlie it, afraid to teach the classics of literature and philosophy (both European and oriental) in a way that instills critical thinking skills for fear that they may question the values (and in all too many cases the bigotry) their parents embrace. They are scared to give school kids a basic understanding of their own reproductive tracts so they don't fall prey to the myths of their peers, and the result is a teenage pregnancy rate several times that of most European nations which don't fear sex education. Is it any wonder that a century of slow degradation of the public education system, finished off by a hysterical assault by the religious right, is producing a nation of philosophical illiterates and intellectual pygmies? And does anyone believe that democracy, which requires an educated, thinking electorate, can long survive in such an environment?

The antidote to all of this is the enforcement of academic rigor (demanding accurate and pertinent academic performance of students), and the instilling of critical thinking habits starting in the earliest grades. The insistence on the practice of critical thinking skills throughout the public education process would do wonders for America, economically, socially and culturally. Best of all, people who have learned to think critically as a matter of habit (which will happen if it is a skill practiced throughout the public education process) develop a love of learning and new ideas. The reason is that they can pick them apart and come up with novel interpretations. America would experience a cultural and economic flowering that would be the envy of the world.

Best of all, this reform can be accomplished with relatively little investment. It is a change in teaching style and method, rather than requiring new technology or facilities.

Yet it will never happen. Why? Because, as the late Dr. Carl Sagan observed in an interview on National Public Radio back in 1996, large numbers of people who can think critically will be seriously threatening to the power structure. The theofascists who are gradually taking control of important institutions in this country would feel undermined and at risk. So they'll oppose every effort to institute this basic and simple reform.