I've been so impressed by the consistent links between education and freedom that run through American intellectual history. As we celebrate America's birthday, let me share just two.
The first is from Frederick Douglass, the great orator, and activist. Douglass often described the epiphany he experienced as a young slave: the realization that the path from slavery to freedom was through education. His master's wife had been teaching him to read, and when the slaveholder discovered this, he was outraged. Nothing good will come of educating a slave, he exclaimed. The boy only needs to heed his master's commands! Douglass overheard this.
The direct pathway to freedom is education, and education is based in literacy because when you can read you have the independence to learn on your own. This "new and special revelation" was a turning point for Douglass, as he puts it, the "first anti-slavery speech" that made a difference to him.
This is a Jeffersonian moment in Douglass's life, and in American history, even if Jefferson himself didn't believe that a black man like Douglass could experience such a moment. The fact that America paid tribute to liberty and equality while brutally enslaving millions outraged Douglass, and that kind of outrage helped fuel the abolitionist movement before the Civil War.
The second example comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who feared that colleges were places that encouraged too much conformity and not enough inspiration. One must, Emerson insists, be an inventor to study well. He readily admits that guidance to the best books is a great service, but this service can turn into corruption if they teach subservience to the material - if they teach dependence.
Emerson here is radicalizing the notions of university education that Jefferson developed when founding the University of Virginia. The enemy for the founding father was rote learning; the plague was to be trained for a destiny that had already been chosen for you. Emerson builds on Jefferson in calling for institutions of advanced learning to inspire, to transform through creativity.
Education as the direct pathway from slavery to freedom... Education as the awakening of creativity ..... We might say learning leads to independence. Happy 4th!
I guess freedom is only for the rich.
and
claiming state rights, loss of liberty,the meaning of "general welfare", and what not, to deny healthcare to millions.
But first, of course, there has to be movement in the area of education…
Is the monumental inscription above the entrance to the Boston Public Library building.
With government student loan programs artificially inflating the money supply to colleges and universities, these college and universities see artificially increased veracity and importance as a consequence.
We need to be very careful with this. Government is so very influential in academics lives and we see the consequences of this influence today.
November is the most important election in our lifetime. I truly hope that we can understand the meaning of these factors in sustaining freedom.
As a Physicist with experience as a professor, as a government worker at a high level, with experience in corporation research/management, I believe I am equipped to say that colleges and universities are not as open minded as we like to think.
All of the education changes not, the taxpayers pay banks and wall street to be a casino and the agenda is debt slave serfdom in one way or another. Just because we are a developed nation only means we have much more to lose.
Wait a minute. Rome had its colosseum and gladiators. That really didn't work out. We the people? Here we have video games, texting, mega-movie blockbuster hits based on comic book heroes, facebook, twitter, youtube, the bachelorette, reality shows, lots and lots to take a person's mind off things. More important things, like politics, reading, education, current events, unemployment, a $16 trillion national debt, world affairs, state of the union, mass unemployment. What's a person to do? I guess what a lot of people are doing. Purchase a gun and wait for the fall. Yawn. In the meantime, try and get to the third level......
If only Emerson were alive today to witness the uniform Leftist group think that permeates higher education today.
OK, so how impressed were you? I'm sorry, but when an article about education begins with a sentence like that, I can't help but point it out.
At Tuskegee his students learned the principles of construction building the school by dint of their own sweat and labor. Newt Gingrich was excoriated for suggesting that students might participate in the upkeep of their schools, but in fact facilities management is now a major in vocational schools and colleges across the country. Today's separation of vocational from college prep ignores the reality that regardless of how we make our livings, we still need to know the fundamentals of modern living: how plumbing and electricity come into the house, what to check when the car or lawn mower won't start.
However, the fundamental disconnect today between education and freedom is that we have no agreed upon core values for "the education of an American citizen". We must return to the true forefathers of democracy, the ancient Greeks, and hold as our educational template or rubric the 4 Civic Virtues of Wisdom, Courage, Justice and Temperance (or Moderation). Were we to infuse the 4 ancient civic virtues into today's curriculum, we above all restore value/relevance to what we teach in a way free of religious bias.
Every American should re-read "The Declaration of Independence."
The ideals set forth seem to have been negated over the past several generations...by 'our' representatives.
Law enforcement needs to re-direct its focus on crimes... to those that are REAL crimes.
I spent 5 years in Federal Prison for a marijuana offense. I watched armed bank robbers come and go in as little as 20 months.
After 3 years, I pointed this out to the parole board. Their response: “You must understand, yours was a very serious offense.”
How do you respond to that mentality?
I laughed about the parole panel's comment for 2 more years (as I still sat in prison), then wrote my book:
Shoulda Robbed a Bank
No, it is not a treatise on disproportionate sentences, but a look at what the 'marijuana culture' is really about.
People pursuing happiness in their own way. Harming no one...nor their property.
That’s my contribution to helping point out just how ludicrous our pot laws truly are.
I hope you check it out.
She described him: "...he is as harmless as a Beagle puppy."
I am of the same ilk...NOT a desperado.
Even the feds, in their statistics, acknowledge that the vast majority of drug offenders are non-violent. Where I was located, Ashland Federal Correctional Institution, 58% of the prison population were large scale drug offenders. I never encountered a one of them that I would call 'aggressive.' We just all wanted to do our time and get the heck out of there.
You bet, these laws need to change.
What the world needs now is a resurgence of fair media, that peoples champion and conscience of nations holding history of inspiring citizens to gather overwhelming public opinion in order to force needed changes!
So the GOP wants to convince people education from kindergarten onwards is bad for them. They want to increase the income inequality. This election is about the survival of the middle class.