Embrace the I in amerIca

Alaska is a state of beauty, wilderness, and nature’s unseen miracles. Yet beneath the surface, there is a huge potential for oil and energy resources. People are afraid to tap into these resources because they don’t want to risk losing the beauty on the surface…or the view of Russia from their backyards. In all seriousness, though, the United States is pretty similar metaphorically. On the surface, the American dream and multiculturalism make the US a state of superficial beauty, but buried deep below there is so much room for potential. There is a façade that America embraces the individual, and also the path towards social and economic equality. This is a contradiction, yet one that needs to be remedied and demands attention. Society does a fantastic job of claiming to encourage innovation and individualism, but in practicality it is doing quite the opposite. The American people and government need to actually embrace cultural and intellectual individualism in order to progress as a nation. Through education reform and a less strict “learning” mold for citizens, the approach towards full individual potential can be realized and benefit not only the American people on an individual level, but on a national and international level as well.

America prides itself on being a melting pot and a land where anyone can do anything. Our freedoms are immense, and as Michael Walzer says in Multiculturalism and Individualism, “we are free to plot our own course, plan our own lives, choose a career, a partner, a religion, a politics, a life-style. Free to ‘do our own thing’.” Walzer argues that the US “isn’t homogeneous nationally or locally; it’s heterogeneous everywhere.” I do agree with these points of diversity and freedom, as they are nearly impossible to refute. These freedoms are crucial to the basic definition of America, but hidden catches are prevalent in American society. I am of the opinion that cultural diversity is a benefit to societal experiments, but for me, race is not what makes people individuals. Individuals develop from experience and their own innovative thoughts and ideas.

Walzer comments “this country is not only a pluralism of groups but also a pluralism of individuals.” I agree that this statement may have been true during the foundation of the United States, but it has digressed since. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the other fathers of American society exemplified individualism. They only had a loose concept of historical traditions to base this new country of America on, so they had to be innovative. They embraced freedom of religion and the pursuit of happiness, and set a precedent for the cultural integration and intellectual appreciation for years to follow. They developed an entirely new model for society, one that if carried on today, would have made for the most imperfect but wonderful nation the world will ever see, not one that is losing its foothold as a hegemony in the 21st century.

America has become preoccupied with social equality. Don’t get me wrong, social equality is of the utmost importance, but the way it is being approached is inhibiting the rest of society. As Walzer says, we are in a “historical period when social equality outdistances economic quality”. Economic quality develops from innovation and intellectual progress, which cannot be simultaneous with a prioritization of social quality. This is because a determination to keep everyone “equal” staggers growth as businesses, schools, and even the government get caught up in the technicalities of what is equal and can not focus on what is best for societal progress on a whole.

How do we fix this dilemma? We start with policy that will reform our education systems. Walzer says “if we want the mutual reinforcements of community and individuality to work effectively for everyone, we will have to act politically to make them effective.” True. Yet we have to begin with the future of America, the youth. Because, in all honesty, the working generation today is economically not worth fixing. It’s too expensive to change the current workforce all at once, and I somewhat go along with the saying that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. We need to start with the kids.

We have a serious problem with America’s education system. John Taylor Gatto argues in Against School that the education system is crippling America’s youth, and I quite agree. He asks, somewhat facetiously, “is it possible that George W. Bush accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would ‘leave no child behind’? Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure not one of them ever really grows up?” The US has placed so much importance on keeping everyone equal, that they are hindering the potential for advancement in education. Students are hardly required to use critical thinking skills or logical skills in today’s school system. They are bred to do well on standardized tests and to have supreme memorization skills. Much of the taught material is not actually comprehended because multiple-choice tests, well, test test-taking skills. If you can memorize information for the test and forget it the next day, you are in the clear. Gatto says that “we have been taught in this country to think of ‘success’ a synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, ‘schooling’.” Yet the quality of the schooling is absolutely crucial to consider. Unfortunately, this isn’t a priority for those in Washington deciding the national curriculums and requirements.

“We don’t need Karl Marx’s conception of a grand warfare between the classes to see that is in the interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to discard them if they don’t conform.”- Gatto

We have to stop catering to the lowest academic level in not leaving any child behind. We must push their minds to the limits, and as Gatto says, “urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology.” America is supposed to be the pioneer for innovation and knowledge, but Gatto quotes the American Mercury for April in saying that “nothing could be further from the truth. The aim…is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.” Gatto says that “people who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.” This is true, and controlling the population would be a benefit to the government, concerning efficiency. That’s what Stalin thought too. That’s a hyperbolic comparison to Communism, but hey, it’s a slippery slope.

Kids need to play and experiment in order to innovate and expand their horizons. I don’t think, for instance, science can be effectively learned from a book. Students can memorize the properties of elements and principles, but they don’t actually get it unless the have something tangible to learn from. There’s a science museum called, “The Exploratorium” in San Francisco, and after reading about it, I think all schools could take a page out of The Exploratorium’s book, literally. Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens is a book that outlines the history, development and philosophy of the museum. The museum encourages discovery and learning without worry of right or wrong. It provokes “intuitive connections that people make by messing around with multiple examples of things” through playing. The books says that “when everything seems unconnected and unexplainable, we are like children sitting in the dark,” but when you know why things happen, “it brings with it a long existential sigh of relief”. Students need this push of motivation, and it would be most effective if it came from within instead of pressed upon them by educational benchmarks.

Thus, work ethic has become a problem. Students are told to do what they can to get by and get good grades, but not to do as much as they can for their own future endeavors. This dominating thought molds them into conformity, replicas that have no need to be unique and creative. In Class in America, Gregory Mantsios tries to figure out what it is exactly that is creating this mess. He says that “when we look at society and try to determine what it is that keeps most people down—what holds them back from realizing their potential as healthy, creative, productive individuals- we find institutional forces that are largely beyond individual control.” There needs to be a collective movement of the masses to reform education. The problem is that young minds are being manipulated to think that there are no options other than the textbooks presented. They need to test well in school and do their homework. For the most part, they have not matured enough to question the education system outside of not wanting to write a paper. By the time they realize the woes in education, it’s almost too late.

Personally, I believed that I was the model student from kindergarten through high school. I got “straight A’s”, and always tested highly on the standardized tests. Oh! I was so wrong. It’s pretty embarrassing how little I retain from my education pre-college. I could calculate differential equations and methodical calculus problems, but I have absolutely no idea what they mean. I studied my butt off for the Calculus AP test, but guess what, I have no idea why any of that was significant. I memorized fact after fact for history, and equation after equation for chemistry. My high school offered electives, but I was always so concerned with keeping the most impressive academic schedule to get into college. So no photography for me.

And then I went to college. The vision of having a 4.0 quickly evaporated, and it has taken me up until this point to stop caring, sometimes I still struggle with it. Yet even though my grades aren’t pristine, I have learned exponentially more. I care about what I am learning, and the reasons for such material. I have been able to explore fields in politics, particle physics, ethics, entertainment, philosophy… you name it. I’m getting credit for a theater improvisation class, which I have learned more from than some of my most rigorous international relations courses. I am privileged though, and most Americans do not get the opportunity to go to such an open and progressive university. I am discontent, however. If I cared as much about learning and thinking from the get-go fifteen years earlier, imagine where I would be today. Imagine where the rest of America’s youth would be. With an emphasis on logic, creative thinking, life skills in general, we could have achieved world peace by now instead of how to crack the SATs…well, maybe. It’s a start.

The beginning of this new education system is in the works. In Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work, Jean Anyon analyzes the different schools in existence today. There is a type of executive elite school in which “schoolwork helps one to achieve, to prepare for life”. The graduates of these programs come out on top in society, succeeding in almost any field they choose to pursue. She comments, “the executive elite school is the only school where bells do not demarcate the periods of time.” The silly technical rules that apply to most schools are irrelevant here. The kids are there to learn and to stretch their minds to the furthest limits, and that is exactly what happens. The kids are happy, too, and learning is not a chore for them. It really shouldn’t be for anyone.

I don’t want to make it seem like I don’t appreciate American advancement in general. I just believe we have the potential for so much more. We seriously could knock every other nation out of the park intellectually, and consequently economically and technologically. We could also set an example for every state to follow, and tap into the potential for creative advancement worldwide. The possibilities could be endless. International scholastic collaboration could lead to achieving huge advancements together instead of less significant advancements apart. We just have to get the ball rolling.