Article #3
Brutal
Reality of Public Education Responsibility
For the
Ignorance of American Citizens
Over the long-term, the most important task
for Americans is the overhaul of K-12 education.
In the short-term, the new Biden-Harris
administration must mount an effective response to the Covid-19 pandemic; recommit the United States firmly to the
Paris Climate Accords; work toward
reestablishing United States presence in the Iran nuclear deal; end an array of anti-immigrant policies and
provide a route to citizenship for long-time immigrant residents and for those
fleeing dangerous situations in home countries;
broaden Medicaid coverage and provide a public option in seeking
universal health care coverage;
establish a $15 minimum wage and inaugurate responsible fiscal and
monetary policies in which all classes thrive in a flourishing economy.
But the reality is that few Americans have
the information base to participate in discussions on these matters. They are ignorant as to pertinent facts on
these issues and many matters at the core of existence at the beginning of the
third decade of the twenty-first century:
For example, most Americans cannot
immediately locate Iran and Afghanistan on a map. They command very few details as to the
contents of United States Constitution.
They have little knowledge of pre-Columbian Native American life. They have little knowledge of the great West
African empires and the later slave-trading states of the Ashanti and the
Dahomey; how the slave trade worked in
detail; the particular injustice of African
American life between 1877 and 1965; or
the array of complicated factors that have led to the challenges of life at the
urban core.
Most Americans do not know the meaning and
significance of Gross Domestic Product, the difference between debt and deficit
or between fiscal and monetary policy;
the distinctions among Freudian, Skinnerian, humanist, and neural
psychology; the defining characteristics
and beliefs of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Confucianism; beyond selected reading in Sunday school and
sanctuary service selections, any detailed understanding of the text of the Bible,
any sense of the structure and the messages of the Bible, the Torah, or the
Talmud. Few Americans have read with
comprehension even one Shakespearean play;
few are even aware of the plays of August Wilson. Most Americans have little understanding of
the fundamentals of English grammar.
Many think that fractions are mysteries that constitute advanced
mathematics. Knowledge of world visual
and musical art is abysmal.
Thus do Americans live out their existences
without the cultural enrichment that broad knowledge provides. They have little capacity for engaged
citizenship. Most are not vocationally
prepared for remunerative and fulfilling employment.
Thus do we get a society in which many
people feel such deprivation of purpose that they stay mired in drug-induced
hazes. Knowing that something is wrong
but not quite understanding the nature of the wrong, many Americans retreat to
a warped form of evangelical belief, worship of demagogues, commitment to the
nonsense of Q-anon. Incitement of insurrection
incites limited fury. The electoral
process is little understood; democracy
becomes no more than mouthed shibboleth.
Knowledge-deficient education has given us
this society.
Thus, over the long-term, the most
important task for Americans is the overhaul of preK-12 education.
Overhauling preK-12 education will allow
Americans to overcome their abysmal ignorance so as to go forth to lives of
cultural enrichment, civic preparation, and vocational satisfaction--- maximizing the chances for happiness on this
one earthly sojourn.
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