Common Sense: Education

Education is the subject of my third and last “Common Sense” piece for the Herald. My title is drawn from the pamphlet written by Thomas Paine, the American revolutionary whose writing raised the spirits of patriots in the hard winter of 1775-1776. Many Americans feel that currently we are in hard times.

Pennsylvania historically has taken a national lead in many areas of public education. Its first state constitution in 1790 recognized the importance of education for all citizens by requiring that the “poor be taught gratis,” that is, free of charge. In 1834 a state law pushed by Thaddeus Stevens mandated that townships provide for public education through taxation, and Stevens continued to be a strong advocate of public education through his following years as a state legislator. Recognizing the need for well-trained teachers, in 1857 Pennsylvania created a plan for establishing special teachers’ colleges, which evolved into today’s system of 14 state universities.

In addition, Pennsylvania has been very fertile ground for establishing private colleges, many of which were founded by church bodies seeking to ensure that ministers and priests were properly educated. As a legacy, Pennsylvania has the third largest number of four-year colleges and universities among the 50 states. Many readers of this piece will be able to name a half-dozen of such institutions within 50 miles of where they live.

This heritage of Pennsylvania’s commitment to education should bring us to some reflection on the purposes and goals of education – something I can write about because of my lifetime commitment to education, from tutoring fellow students in high school, to taking education courses in college (along with a bit of student teaching), to helping kids with homework as a boy’s worker at the Lutheran Social Mission Society in Philadelphia, and finally, from teaching at five universities.

There are three main goals of education. The first is teaching the skills that are fundamental to engaging with modern society. The well-worn aphorism that schools teach “reading, writing and arithmetic,” tells us what basics everyone in “modern society” must master. You may take reading the Herald or a Wikipedia entry for granted, but probably honed that ability in school. Writing capability is necessary in most occupations, and is useful personally, whether sending a letter to or emailing friends, or filing an insurance claim. Without arithmetic keeping track of bills and banking is impossible, and is critical to many practical occupations, whether carpentry or running a business.

The second goal of education is imparting knowledge. Whether it is technical and scientific knowledge, understanding the history of human behavior, or learning about great literature and art, education provides the fundamental knowledge that allows us to be competent in our chosen occupations and, equally important, to be informed citizens. If we can place Ukraine on a map, and know what happened to that nation under the Soviet Union and during World War II, we are more likely to understand to what extent a war there affects the United States. If we have learned some chemistry or biology we will better grasp environmental problems that affect air and water in the Cove.

The third goal of education is to challenge our thinking, even so far as to make us uncomfortable. Education at every level makes us encounter new ideas, and although some may find those ideas interesting – even exciting – those ideas are just as likely to shake us out of some of our accepted ways of understanding. Encountering algebra after mastering mathematics can be quite disturbing. Reading great literature, whether by Charles Dickens or Toni Morrison, may introduce us to human behaviors that we have not personally encountered and find difficult to understand. And studying American or global history may challenge the accuracy of what we have seen in movies or heard on television. These challenges help us to think carefully and logically, which virtually every curriculum of studies, whether in public schools or colleges, states as an expected result of education.

Taken together, encountering and absorbing these aspects of education underly Americans’ ability to seek and hold jobs. And every survey of employment and income shows that the better one does in school, and the further one goes in education, the better one’s lifetime earnings are. Finally, it is surely common sense that having more skills and knowledge, combined with the ability to think carefully and logically, help us to navigate an increasingly complex world as individuals, as family members, and as citizens.