Education Is Our Key To Freedom
The Information Highway Is Being Shut Down
Make no mistake about it: they want us dumb, uneducated, and unable to think better than they do. The they? White Supremacists, oligarchs, and people who aspire to keep Trump style government in place. The Russians and Chinese think it’s a good idea, too.
All of the Trump administration’s hype about saving money from shutting down climate change regulations, closing the Department of Education, and almost every other “cost saving” method is joined at the hip with making Americans into non-thinkers.
We were once a nation that venerated education. By the mid-1800’s, the nation agreed to three principles: schools should be free and supported by taxes, teachers should be trained, and all children should be required to attend school. The first half of the twentieth century saw dramatic leaps in education fostered by Jean Piaget, Benjamin Bloom, Maria Montessori, Horace Mann, and John Dewey. Thomas Galludet and Samuel Howe had advanced methods of educating the disabled. In 1867 the Department of Education was founded indicating that education was not just important to children but also to the country as a whole.
Add in America’s revolting attitude toward the education of non-whites. Once Americans decided some classes of people were not as necessary to educate, veneration of education went out the door and education as a commodity became a practice. Indigenous and Blacks took the brunt of the movement, and still do.
Fast forward to 2025. Head Start which acts as both child care and early education is being cut. The Department of Education is being dismantled and declared unneeded. Universities are being attacked by the administration. Science programs that were shining stars from elementary level to post-doctoral work are having funding slashed. Librarians are being removed and books banned. Public education is under attack by voucher systems that perpetuate reduced educational benefits for Indigenous and non-whites, but add a third class: low-income whites.
The entire process is a studied, progressing determination to create a populace that has neither facts nor skills to speak for themselves. If the people cannot think nor reason, and are not fed the information needed to think and reason, then they cannot dispute actions by a wealthy class to subvert them. This group includes those who aim for governmental positions who seek out the wealthy as their foundations.
We have a duty to protect education. Nay, we have a requirement to not only protect education, but to realize how deeply it controls our survival.
If Americans don’t understand science, they won’t refute lack of health information. If the connection between wages and commerce are not understood, workers will limit themselves. If the inter-relationships among countries isn’t appreciated, world conflicts will always be someone else’s fault. If no link is put forward between human actions and large, rapid climate shifts, it becomes only God’s will. If the connection between wildlife, plants, and free land is never studied, the vistas that are America are free to go to the highest bidder. If our best lose critical-thinking skills, our government can be run by a single class, able to dominate through their singular educational opportunities.
We are at a crossroad where our fight for democracy has to also be a fight for education. All education. The culture within the walls of the Smithsonian are as important as a robotics doctorate from MIT. The books available in an elementary library are as important as archiving cancer research. If democracy is to be saved and allowed to grow, one feeds off the other.
Yes, we have to fight in all quarters tooth and nail to maintain healthcare, first amendment rights, a free press, due process for all, and a constitutional government with three separate but equal branches. But we also have to fight for the educational elements and freedoms that have evolved since the first public school, the Boston Latin School, was established in 1635.
As we protest the inhumane behavior of the current administration, let’s not turn our backs on protesting the shredding of American thinking through the removal of all forms of education. We must always be able to think and find cause and effect.
“Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.” George Washington Carver