Article #2 >>>>> >Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Vo

 Article #2

The Adult Responsibility to Specify Knowledge and Ethical Values for Transmission to Youth

K-12 public education has for four decades now proceeded ideologically on the basis of a degraded approach first generated by William Heard Kilpatrick at Teachers College/Columbia University during the 1920s---  and eventually embraced by education professors at colleges, schools, and departments of education throughout the United States.  The anti-knowledge creed did not gain acceptance until the 1960s but from that time forward came to be increasingly, pervasively dominant in the public schools.  

The essential approach devalues specified knowledge sets in favor of curriculum left to student and teacher whim.  

For those in our locally centralized school districts with curricular decision-making responsibility, this approach constitutes a reprehensible abdication of adult responsibility---  as if those stories had not been told around campfires, wisdom of the elders had not been passed on to youth, and societal knowledge had not been specified for transmission throughout the generations.

We must jettison this anti-knowledge creed and embrace the adult responsibility of deciding the knowledge sets and the ethical values to be passed on to our youth……

Knowledge Sets to Be Imparted in Systems of Public Education

Schools in systems of public education function along with family. religious organizations, and social and political assemblages as the key institutions influential in determining human behavior.   When a person's genetic inheritance and biological development during the first five years of life interact with one's environment as determined by these institutions and by life experiences, a person becomes all that she or he is and shall be.  

Because people between the ages of five and eighteen spend so much time in school, the knowledge and values acquired in the school setting determine much of the individual's information base and ethical values. Greatest care must be taken, therefore, as to the knowledge and values transmitted.

As to knowledge, each student should  be given the foundation to pursue any profession that she or he selects.  At K-5, curriculum should emphasize mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, government, economics, psychology, American and world literature, English usage, the visual arts, and music.  

These subjects should continue to determine curriculum, with increasing experiences also with world languages and the vocational and technological arts from middle school through high school.  Most students should upon such a firm foundation then be prepared to take Advanced Placement courses and to opt for electives according to their driving interests, academic aspirations, and professional goals. 

Such a public education will produce citizens positioned to dwell as culturally enriched, civically engaged, professionally satisfied human beings living maximally for self and society on this one earthly sojourn.

Ethical Values to Be Imparted in Public Schools Overhauled for Curricular Excellence

School represents, along with family, religious institutions, social organizations, and other life experience a determinative force as a person's genetic and biological constitution interacts with environment.

To produce an informed citizenry in the generations to come, to replace the abysmally ignorant national populace extant today, we must overhaul education for knowledge intensity and elevated ethical content.

At their best, the world's major belief systems offer values to be incorporated into a consensual ethical value system >>>>>  

>>>>>  from Judaism, the relentless aspiration to discover and live according to supreme justice and righteousness; 

>>>>> from Hinduism, the non-egotistical commitment to >dharma< (moral law) in the pursuit of spiritual liberation;  

>>>>>  from Confucianism. the commitment to practical daily behavior for betterment of family and society,  

>>>>> from Daoism, an appreciation for nature and flexible response to both aversive and joyful events;  

>>>>>  from Christianity, universal love for all humankind;  

>>>>> from Buddhism, deep compassion for all beings in lives of firm mental and moral discipline;  

>>>>>  from Islam, steadfast and undistracted devotion to supreme truth and disciplined personal behavior.  

In our classrooms, we must conduct vigorous discussions focused on these  exalted moral values, with a commitment to go forth in the world with love for all human beings, deep appreciation for nature, and a commitment to the best life for all on this one earthly sojourn.