A Few -- A Very Few -- Words on "Education"

One, two, three, four,
These are the facts you're looking for.
Five, six, seven, eight,
Now's the time to regurgitate.

That about summarizes what "education" meant to many teachers of previous generations.

Nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
You needn't rhyme this as long as you feel good about yourself, don't "hate" and do all you can to "save the earth."

And that about summarizes what "education" means to many teachers today.

  *  *  *  *  *

This, if you'll pardon the coarse vernacular, sucks.

How about teaching  the facts as mankind has come to know them, teaching why facts are important -- they are the building blocks of all knowledge -- teaching the necessity and, yes, the joys of striving to increase knowledge with hard work and critical thinking (this, btw, is called "science") and helping developing minds understand that previous generations, too, did these things and left a great gift in the form of valuable learning for us to build upon? (That btw is called "history," "the arts" and "literature.")

Nah, I know, the above would be much too difficult. The teachers would first have to learn and do all that themselves. And worse, so would all the teachers of teachers.

No, It'll be much easier to just leave things as they are and strive to feel good about ourselves too.