This one comes from Week 2 of my Constitution 101 class at Hillsdale College.
"Why is education necessary for the existence of a free government? What kind of education is required for a free society?"
It's kind of obvious that education is "necessary", but a particular kind of education is required. It's not just the ability to read and write that is needed in a free society, it is an education that requires the individual to think beyond himself and his immediate needs. Logic, history, and philosophy should be a huge part of it.
Imagine if, instead of our current system of compulsory education, it was the parents' responsibility to get the children to a particular level of learning. They were in charge of the children's core and love of learning stages, as the Thomas Jefferson Education people put it. This can happen at any age. It would be up to the parents how they could get that child there, be it a school or at home, early or late. Then around high school age, when young adults are really open to new learning and study (if their core and love of learning has been nurtured) they test to attend a high school where they begin to learn the real founding of our system of government, where it came from, who the Founders studied, etc. They learn history, rhetoric, and logic to the point where they can make informed decisions about laws and elected leaders. This would be something each student would work through with a mentor, at their own pace, to get to a place that the student and mentor have agreed upon at the beginning. And you can't vote until you have proven that you have this basic understanding.
I'm dreaming. I'm seeing this begin in my oldest son, but people don't believe me. He has begun to have enough play and is setting his sights higher. He behaves well in public because he is respected at home not bullied and directed.
I think we set our kids in these public institutions which cram them and bore them to death with reading, writing, and arithmetic. They are so bored and dumbed down and defeated by the time they get to high school that all they want to do is escape. When they finally do, they flee from any kind of learning at all, leave the running of the country to those who are ambitious enough to take control and sit back and beg for someone to take care of them.
I'm just now starting to love learning again after all the schools did. I'm finally learning some of what I should have been deep in studying from the start. And I didn't do poorly in school. I did pretty darn well actually. But it never prepared me to make an educated vote. I didn't learn about our economy, our system of government, or why either are important. I just learned who the authority was and to respect it. By the time I left high school, I believed I was done. I had jumped the hoops and was ready to join the work force, never to think again. That isn't how our country works though.
Our republican style of government sets us free to govern ourselves. If we don't understand that, we can't vote to keep it. We can't expect someone else to guard our freedoms. They are unalienable rights, but we give them up voluntarily when we refuse to understand our history, use our logic and reason, and know what our priorities are.
"Why is education necessary for the existence of a free government? What kind of education is required for a free society?"
It's kind of obvious that education is "necessary", but a particular kind of education is required. It's not just the ability to read and write that is needed in a free society, it is an education that requires the individual to think beyond himself and his immediate needs. Logic, history, and philosophy should be a huge part of it.
Imagine if, instead of our current system of compulsory education, it was the parents' responsibility to get the children to a particular level of learning. They were in charge of the children's core and love of learning stages, as the Thomas Jefferson Education people put it. This can happen at any age. It would be up to the parents how they could get that child there, be it a school or at home, early or late. Then around high school age, when young adults are really open to new learning and study (if their core and love of learning has been nurtured) they test to attend a high school where they begin to learn the real founding of our system of government, where it came from, who the Founders studied, etc. They learn history, rhetoric, and logic to the point where they can make informed decisions about laws and elected leaders. This would be something each student would work through with a mentor, at their own pace, to get to a place that the student and mentor have agreed upon at the beginning. And you can't vote until you have proven that you have this basic understanding.
I'm dreaming. I'm seeing this begin in my oldest son, but people don't believe me. He has begun to have enough play and is setting his sights higher. He behaves well in public because he is respected at home not bullied and directed.
I think we set our kids in these public institutions which cram them and bore them to death with reading, writing, and arithmetic. They are so bored and dumbed down and defeated by the time they get to high school that all they want to do is escape. When they finally do, they flee from any kind of learning at all, leave the running of the country to those who are ambitious enough to take control and sit back and beg for someone to take care of them.
I'm just now starting to love learning again after all the schools did. I'm finally learning some of what I should have been deep in studying from the start. And I didn't do poorly in school. I did pretty darn well actually. But it never prepared me to make an educated vote. I didn't learn about our economy, our system of government, or why either are important. I just learned who the authority was and to respect it. By the time I left high school, I believed I was done. I had jumped the hoops and was ready to join the work force, never to think again. That isn't how our country works though.
Our republican style of government sets us free to govern ourselves. If we don't understand that, we can't vote to keep it. We can't expect someone else to guard our freedoms. They are unalienable rights, but we give them up voluntarily when we refuse to understand our history, use our logic and reason, and know what our priorities are.
