Education
In the mid-80s, I became intrigued with the field of education. My fascination reflected profound frustrations with various aspects of the American educational system. The trials and tribulations of schoolteacher Sam Kramer, the lead character in The Creed Room, reveal many of those frustrations, as do my educational writings from the late-80s.
One of my greatest complaints involved public schools' failure to expose children to instruction in philosophy and comparative religion. To me, this failure was a by-product of the establishment in the public schools of an American Civil Religion. I viewed that religion as an amalgam of three components: (a) scientism, or the exaggerated faith in the power of the scientific method to answer our deepest philosophical questions; (b) American nationalism, which extols the "American way of life" (i.e., its political and economic system) and talks about Americans as some sort of "chosen people" with a manifest destiny; and (c) Christianity, presented as an occasional spiritual supplement to the other components of our Civil Religion, one that is available as a source of inspiration and values that need not restrict either our daily actions or our scientific beliefs whenever there is a conflict between religion and science.
In two publications, I called for educators to recognize that the American educational system was not religiously neutral, and was thus not consistent with the spirit of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, I called for more courses in comparative religion and philosophy, and a greater appreciation for the value of exposing children to multiple points of view whenever discussing issues of profound religious significance. In other words, I called on the schools to arm students with the ability to recognize the great questions of religion and to think for themselves how to resolve those questions.
The longest exposition of my argument was published in a law review article entitled "The Creation of a Free Marketplace of Religious Ideas: Revisiting the Establishment Clause after the Alabama Secular Humanism Decision," 39 Alabama Law Review 1 (Fall 1987). Subsequently, I published an article on the same general topic in a leading educational journal. The article was entitled "Public Schools and the Road to Religious Neutrality," 70 Phi Delta Kappan 10, at 759 (June 1989). That latter article was reprinted by Diskin Publishing Group in the 1990-1991 volume of the Annual Editions series on Education.
In 1991, I was also privileged to serve as the lead author of a chapter entitled "Philosophy of Education" in a commonly used education textbook. The chapter came out in the second edition of Teachers, Schools, and Society, by Sadker and Sadker (New York: McGraw Hill).
For the most part, my research on educational philosophy taught me how out of step my own educational ideas were with the mainstream of late 20th century education. Suffice it to say that I prefer more of a Great Books, "teach people to think deeply even if you don’t cover as much material” approach. That’s the type of educational philosophy that later attracted me to the International Baccalaureate Program, which both of my daughters attended for high school. Unfortunately, unless you’re dealing with a student population that is unusually motivated and gifted, the Great Books approach might not work too swimmingly on standardized achievement tests, and that's what seems to be important in education today -- tests, tests, tests. Nothing destroys creativity and the love of learning quite like an obsession with tests.
When reflecting on the field of education, I often think back to the Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge that Thomas Jefferson proposed to the Virginia State Legislature. Jefferson sought for all free children in the Commonwealth to receive three years of primary schooling at the Commonwealth’s expense. Those three years, he assumed, would be enough to give them a background in reading, writing, and arithmetic. That, in turn, would provide them with the tools they would need to become educated voters for the rest of their lives. And the result would be that American political leaders would be selected based on their intelligence and wisdom, for they would be chosen by an educated electorate.
Jefferson’s vision inspires me, because it suggests that just a taste of schooling could be enough to inspire students to become lifelong learners. What do you say we empower our school teachers to instill among their students the love of learning for its own sake, and eliminate the need for them to worry so much about covering so much preordained content? As has been taught eloquently by such philosophers as Lessing and Jaspers, it is the love of the search for wisdom, and not the love of the possession of truth, that we should be cultivating above all else when we dare to call ourselves educators.
One of my greatest complaints involved public schools' failure to expose children to instruction in philosophy and comparative religion. To me, this failure was a by-product of the establishment in the public schools of an American Civil Religion. I viewed that religion as an amalgam of three components: (a) scientism, or the exaggerated faith in the power of the scientific method to answer our deepest philosophical questions; (b) American nationalism, which extols the "American way of life" (i.e., its political and economic system) and talks about Americans as some sort of "chosen people" with a manifest destiny; and (c) Christianity, presented as an occasional spiritual supplement to the other components of our Civil Religion, one that is available as a source of inspiration and values that need not restrict either our daily actions or our scientific beliefs whenever there is a conflict between religion and science.
In two publications, I called for educators to recognize that the American educational system was not religiously neutral, and was thus not consistent with the spirit of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, I called for more courses in comparative religion and philosophy, and a greater appreciation for the value of exposing children to multiple points of view whenever discussing issues of profound religious significance. In other words, I called on the schools to arm students with the ability to recognize the great questions of religion and to think for themselves how to resolve those questions.
The longest exposition of my argument was published in a law review article entitled "The Creation of a Free Marketplace of Religious Ideas: Revisiting the Establishment Clause after the Alabama Secular Humanism Decision," 39 Alabama Law Review 1 (Fall 1987). Subsequently, I published an article on the same general topic in a leading educational journal. The article was entitled "Public Schools and the Road to Religious Neutrality," 70 Phi Delta Kappan 10, at 759 (June 1989). That latter article was reprinted by Diskin Publishing Group in the 1990-1991 volume of the Annual Editions series on Education.
In 1991, I was also privileged to serve as the lead author of a chapter entitled "Philosophy of Education" in a commonly used education textbook. The chapter came out in the second edition of Teachers, Schools, and Society, by Sadker and Sadker (New York: McGraw Hill).
For the most part, my research on educational philosophy taught me how out of step my own educational ideas were with the mainstream of late 20th century education. Suffice it to say that I prefer more of a Great Books, "teach people to think deeply even if you don’t cover as much material” approach. That’s the type of educational philosophy that later attracted me to the International Baccalaureate Program, which both of my daughters attended for high school. Unfortunately, unless you’re dealing with a student population that is unusually motivated and gifted, the Great Books approach might not work too swimmingly on standardized achievement tests, and that's what seems to be important in education today -- tests, tests, tests. Nothing destroys creativity and the love of learning quite like an obsession with tests.
When reflecting on the field of education, I often think back to the Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge that Thomas Jefferson proposed to the Virginia State Legislature. Jefferson sought for all free children in the Commonwealth to receive three years of primary schooling at the Commonwealth’s expense. Those three years, he assumed, would be enough to give them a background in reading, writing, and arithmetic. That, in turn, would provide them with the tools they would need to become educated voters for the rest of their lives. And the result would be that American political leaders would be selected based on their intelligence and wisdom, for they would be chosen by an educated electorate.
Jefferson’s vision inspires me, because it suggests that just a taste of schooling could be enough to inspire students to become lifelong learners. What do you say we empower our school teachers to instill among their students the love of learning for its own sake, and eliminate the need for them to worry so much about covering so much preordained content? As has been taught eloquently by such philosophers as Lessing and Jaspers, it is the love of the search for wisdom, and not the love of the possession of truth, that we should be cultivating above all else when we dare to call ourselves educators.
Photo credit: Walter Johnson High School (Bethesda, MD) 1977 yearbook picture featuring PTSA Education Committee co-chairs, Julius and Daniel Spiro.