A New Generation of Americans
Herd driven or task ready?
I write often about education and there is some overlap in what I write. My defense, if defense is needed, is that for democracy to be an aid to a better future or imperil our last best chances for a humane world, education must empower the next generation to be critical and creative activists.
This is a 180-degree turn. Widespread public education, a quite recent innovation actually, began in the United States as an attempt to encourage patriotism and a pro-American viewpoint among the children of immigrants.
Alright, this is a bit too broad and one-sided. It also sought to prepare a generation for factory work, teaching skills and attitudes appropriate to the new employment opportunities of as industrializing society. And for a few, it was a stepping stone from lower to upper class status.
But overall I think it safe to say, it was shaped to prepare the next generation for the economic and political agendas of governing elites. Or as some would say “The March of History.”
While this sounds like a criticism, it is intended only as a truism and seen as justifiable, from the perspectives of that time.
I recall it in these rather stark tones only to better contrast it (180 degrees in fact) with today’s educational needs.
Today American needs the skills and attitudes of critical appraisal. Challenge and doubt; not accept and rejoice.
We will be a different nation by the end of the 21st century. Nostalgia will not improve our chances to be a better nation--a “more perfect union” (italics added). And, a poorly educated (in terms of analytical competencies) population will surely harm such chances.
The image comes to mind of the hogs herded through gates at a meat packing slaughterhouse in “Modern Times.” The virtues of the Status Quo will be eaten for lunch by the forces of science and technology of the next 100 years. “Standing pat” is lying down. And it won’t happen. Changes will be made. Adjustments will be necessary. But who makes them and for what ends and to serve what interests is, as they say, “up for grabs.”
Ordinary people, you and me, and our children, or impersonal forces and the wealthiest among us? We will need “Guardians.”—i.e. leadership that can thread the needles of the future. And, more importantly, a population that will have the intellectual firepower, and the will, to “guard the Guardians.