Public education in the
It’s lost sight of ultimate purposes. It no longer has anything definitive to say about human nature beyond preparing students to participate in a market economy.
The problems aren’t in how or where the money is spent or even if there is enough of it.
The problem is our fear of truth.
Truth must exist. For even if one were to claim as I once did that “There is no such thing as truth” that statement in and of itself becomes a foundational truth for your worldview.
Education today ignores the ancient quest for truth; a quest which has included some foundational questions about our existence; many which public schools cannot answer such as:
Who or what is God?
Who or what is man?
What is the purpose of man’s existence?
Are we created or have we evolved?
What is truth?
What is morality and from where does it come?
Does man possess innate moral truths or are they learned?
Does man have a free will?
What is death?
Is there life after death?
Who are we?
If we don’t know who we are, we cannot possibly know what knowledge is essential for our well-being and thus virtually anything and everything makes its way into our schools and the curriculum. Students have no idea what’s important. There is no consistency in their studies.
A technical approach to learning thus fills the void left by the abandonment of the classical philosophical pursuit of meaning and truth.
Method becomes the overarching purpose. How to get a student to read, for example becomes more important than why or even what the student reads.
Many of teachers, likewise, are stressed and burnt out and don’t like what they do because they too have been forced to teach in ways that are contrary to sound education and, quite frankly, their humanity. They’ve become a part of the techne of education themselves.
Today’s teacher feels more like a factory worker putting pre-assembled parts together for than a creative and inspiring role model. I know after my first year in public schools I felt that way.
And left.
Generations of students have also not been given satisfactory explanations from their teachers (and perhaps parents) as to why “school” is even necessary. There isn’t true freedom in the classroom any longer to have meaningful dialogue about our existence. Whether its law, fear of litigation or curriculum guidelines, educators and students today are forced to check their humanity at the front door.
And if relatively few teachers and students enjoy what they’re doing, should we be surprised that our schools are doing so poorly?
If man’s true nature continues to remain veiled by impersonal bureaucracy and obeisance to pluralistic ideologies which deny the existence of moral absolutes, the classroom will continue to remain an experimental “laboratory” as John Dewey envisioned a century ago; a laboratory which omits the pursuit of truth in place of a pragmatic emphasis upon the technical arrangement of the learning environment; ignoring our humanity for the sake of cultural utility.
Retreats and money (or the lack thereof) are only surface issues. Until our schools begin again to readdress those classic “human” questions as they once did centuries ago, we will continue to spin helplessly in the uninspired quagmire of proverbial mediocrity.
Daniel Ray
