So what’s wrong? And what can we do to fix it? The answer in both cases is … education. You might wonder how education is both the problem and the solution when we are the wealthiest nation in the world. How could it be both the bane and the blessing?
Despite our wealth, according to the CDC, mental health issues among our youth are increasing, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Similarly, published reports indicate there is a high percentage of employees who are not engaged with their work. Pay attention to the news and you will see that although we are the richest nation in history, the evidence of disconnection is abundant.
So first, let’s look at this from the outside in.
There are a few experts on the subject of civilizations, and if they are right: We are in the latter stages of our civilization, or we may be in the dawning of a stronger civilization. Your choice. Either more disengagement or reengage, better education and become stronger.
A hundred years ago, Arnold Toynbee wrote extensively about civilizations. A brief summary of his work that focused on the 20-plus civilizations known to history is that they all have a life cycle of 250-300 years. In trying to simplify Toynbee’s work, he might say that civilizations are born and then die this way: First we are all barbaric, then some persons experience a religious awakening, from which personal industry emerges. This group leads in the formation of a new civilization around their shared values. Then comes prosperity after enough years of work, and should the person have chosen work that is more highly needed, then some persons become affluent and the whole culture grows toward affluence. From affluence comes the next stage of civilization, wherein affluent persons cut their religious roots and become morally indifferent.
You might hear something like this said, “It doesn’t matter to me, I’ve got mine,” or, “I’ll vote for whomever lines my pocket.” This is the mark of a civilization on the cusp of its decline. In a declining civilization, the affluent and morally indifferent guide the next sequence of events.
At this point, civilization has severed its religious roots, and then the civilization goes down the dislocating sequence of events that finally undo the civilization (social contracts are negated). What is government other than a social contract? This whole sequence usually happens over 250 to 300 years. But Toynbee believed that our decline is not inevitable. Our response to these stated factors determines whether we decline into oblivion or renew our purpose and live more vibrantly.
So how is education involved in this? Eighty-plus years ago, our country was among the leaders of the world in education, and then we started moving away from classical education into a more industrially focused progressive education.
We no longer developed the soul and brain of students around our common values and the skill of critical thinking. That is, the classical focus was dismissed in deference to a more “focused-relevant” approach. So we moved toward teaching students what they needed to know to make them more efficient in an industrial age. We neglected (unintentionally) their soul and brain development.
We ensured the dominance of this new direction when we took the Department of Education out of H.E.W. and gave it massive stand-alone funding. Pretty quickly, one-size-fits-all, and all direction comes from Washington.
Now let’s look at this disconnect in the souls of students and employees from the inside out.
Classical education focuses on developing the student’s ability to think and appreciate a life of virtue (a student learns to think and live from the inside out). These students lean into the inherited culture (sometimes correcting its weaknesses) rather than tearing it down, whereas modern progressive education focuses on learning to do what is needed at a specific point in time with no historical context. In progressive education, that means the focus is to simply pass a test with no awareness of history or context. From this, stripped-down focus teaching to the test emerged. Industry needed persons to follow orders and do repetitive work. Brain development languishes and critical thinking disappears.
In contrast to this, classical education worked with brain development so that education was paced to the student’s brain development. Classical education teaches a student how to learn and how to think, whereas progressive education teaches a student what to learn and what to think. So which kind of education do you think we need now?
The Rev. Marty McCarthy lives in Charlotte.
