The previous article ended with John Dewey and FDR. To begin, John Dewey is the father of progressive public education and exerted a great influence on how we have gotten to where we are today. And where we are isn’t good.

Education has always been one of the strong points of the republic. Just as a good education had a positive influence in the formation of our country for the better, the lack of proper education is helping destroy us. Dewey pushed experiential education in the place of the main subjects, reading, writing and arithmetic. (Dewey rejected a theistic God and denied that there was a standard of morality, believing that “only scientific method could reliably increase human good.” From Wikipedia.)

And a consequence of his influence is apparent in students graduating from high school; they can’t read proficiently, write cogently or do higher-level math. Human experience has a place in learning when the subject matter is put to use to test the students knowledge, but by itself, it cannot produce the required mental ability to function in a complex society. The indictment for the decline of public education has to be levied against the colleges and universities that supposedly prepare men and women for the teaching profession. It is sad indeed, when those who are charged with teaching others can’t write a decent paragraph or express themselves orally. How can those whom they teach rise above their beginning level when the teacher is not able to furnish the tools that will allow them to do so? 

One of the deficiencies in higher education is poor teaching about the history of the republic’s founding. Very little knowledge is disseminated in the higher education classes about the foundation and consequently, the students in grade and high schools have little or no critical knowledge of the republic. All one has to do is listen to callers to talk shows and read the letters that are written to papers and magazines to learn that the public knows very little of our constitutional governmental system. They believe that government is to address their every need and should give to them whatever they lack. If the politicians don’t do so, then they are uncaring louts (consisting of mainly conservatives, Christians and Republicans) who are out to deprive them of whatever it is they want.

The latest “we want” is the clamor for public health coverage. Such is nothing but a loud wail by a few wanting something for nothing at the expense of the productive that make the republic flourish. The health bill is added to a long list of government programs created by politicians who try to make us think they are helping us with things that we at one time did for ourselves. The things we once did for ourselves cover quite a lot of ground and they will be addressed in future articles. And the reasons we don’t do them now are the result of FDR, his New Deal and the failure of public education.

© 01-09-2010 DEC

                        Next week: Public Education Failures Part III