Since the beginning of this nation, we have valued education as a necessary way to help citizens to learn basic skills like mathematics, reading and expressing themselves by learning to write. In terms of democracy, it was also necessary to provide an educational basis for an informed electorate since the government was chosen by the people to serve the citizenry well. Another part of that educational goal was to prepare students for occupations and professions in a changing world. To accomplish this, our forefathers saw it was necessary to help students understand not only the society in which they lived, but also the rest of the nation and the world. All of this was to be sure they were equipped to make informed decisions about life and be prepared for leadership. They also recognized that it was necessary to prepare them for a changing future full of unpredictable events and unforeseen changes. To that end, students were taught critical thinking and ways to evaluate information to make informed judgements.
So that all citizens could be included in this process, they created a system of public education. The beginning of this was not perfect, often full of parochial ideas and lack of inclusivity. For instance, an entire Catholic school system was developed because of the early discrimination against Catholic students in the public school system. Later segregation developed a "separate but equal" system that enforced racial separation but that provided very unequal education. Over the years, our society and our public schools became more reflective of our democracy, becoming much more inclusive of all of the citizens of the nation.
Public education had its trials along the way, sometimes resisting the inclusion of other races, ethnic groups and even other religions, much like the rest of the nation. There were even ideological challenges, first in religious terms and later in more political terms as in the Joseph McCarthy period and at other times pushing to limit educational choices and even to ban books.
I happened to have experienced some of this as a smalltown English teacher and Department Chair in Michigan, now 50 years ago. The community erupted into controversy over a book that was being used for an English class in the school. A few parents objected to the book, very mild by any standards. It was my job to defend the teacher, the book and the basic processes of public education. But soon the entire community was in an uproar; community meetings, special board meetings, threats to get me fired, involvement of the John Birch Society. It took weeks to find a reasonable solution. Ultimately there were no book-bannings or burnings. The challenged teacher, from a well-established family in the community, left with his teacher wife to teach successfully for decades in Colorado. The community calmed down. I stayed and had a successful and respected career for several years. The basic standards of American public education were preserved.
We now find ourselves in a similar situation about the goals and purposes of public education. A very vocal minority is trying to change the course of public education in this nation. Most of those changes are connected with ideology. The role of parent control is again at the heart of the matter.
It is an attempt to establish a new direction for education, no longer on the basis of democratic values but now following a new civic religion, a retrograde religion with many of the tenets of white supremacy. It is about rooting out all who do not follow that new civic religion and rejecting and, at times even expelling them for their heresy. It is a time for a new puritanism with the need to purge all faulty ideological thinking.
It is like the opposition to the teachings of the science of evolution has now morphed into a kind of devolution, going back to the good-old-days 'readin', writin' and rithmatic' and not much else. If it was good enough for them then it should still be good enough now. Enough of those new-fangled ideas. The basics of understanding and morality have not changed and never will. We need to keep our children close to us and then send them out to change the world to our way of thinking.
To accomplish this, we will need to make the new education exclusive, keeping inferior breeds out of it. We may provide some basic education for the lower trades for those others who would only contaminate the process for those who are chosen to lead.
Florida, right now, is a perfect example of that kind of purge. There are now laws about what a teacher can teach or even talk about. Minority groups can only be included if they recognize that their history and experiences are no longer appropriate for real education. Even colleges are now under that kind of control.
Not only curriculum, but even books are being censored. Only some are allowed; others are banned. No book burnings yet, but who knows.
To prevent the white student's "discomfort" a whole list of topics must be excluded, and only positive history of the white race is allowed. Apparently, the white students have very delicate sensibilities.
And now there is even trouble with letters of the alphabet. Certain combinations of letters of the alphabet are like casting an evil spell. The letters BLM (Black Lives Matter) are anathema as is CRT (Critical Race Theory) (in my time it meant Cathode Ray Tube) and now DEI (Diversity Equity Inclusiveness). But other acronyms like MAGA (Make America Great Again) are treated like the word of God. Apparently, the way to make America great again is to show that Black lives do not matter, that any mention of race should not be included in public education, and that we should shun anything that smacks of diversity, never allow the ideas of equity to be any part of decision-making, and, above all else never, never, never think that inclusiveness is of any value in educating America. They even reject the word "WOKE" as though sleepwalking through life is somehow preferable to being awake and aware of the realities of life in a diverse and changing modern world.
It is like a reverse Rip Van Winkle, going to sleep in the 21st century and waking up in the 19th.
This becomes an attempt to create a separate reality ignoring the accumulated human knowledge of philosophy, medicine, science, literature, history and every other category of human knowledge. It is a system dependent on the perspective of a small minority of humans, often based, not upon experiential knowledge, but upon the interpretation of a few people of a religious book. It is an attempt to fix public education by not allowing change, an educational system fixed in time and limited to the existing knowledge and perspective of a small group of humans, creating a cloning process and not an educational process.
We have seen this before, autocratic leaders developing top-down systems to re-educate everyone in the new way of thinking to bring on a new and better society. We have seen this in Russia, under Stalin, in Germany, under Hitler, in China, under Mao and, on a smaller scale, at Jonestown and at times under other sects. Most would agree all of these were dangerously misguided failures.
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