Thanks to a reader of the blog for sharing this statement by Dr. King on a matter of concern to us all.
Here is a portion:
“We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.”
And this:
“We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.
“If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, brethren! Be careful, teachers!”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A cynical person might suspect that corporate education reform is intended to promote exactly what MLK warned about.
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I had the same thoughts. MLK’s words -sift, weigh, discern, concentrate, experience – would inspire one to teach and learn.
My daughter described all that is wrong with education today when she told me wryly, “When I grow up, I want to take standardized tests.”
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Truth in education seems a distant reality for students in Title One schools, but the stronger preference appears to be conformity and submission. Love In Abundance has been in Title One schools for seven years, and we are saddened by the growing number of students with a heart to want to know… but feel limited to an education system more into stressing students out via the testing that has taken precedent over actually educating these students.
Love In Abundance could either succumb to the limitations offered in our students schools, or we could empower students by showing them how to heighten their attitude toward their own education. LIA chose the latter because our efforts to get their parents to truly look at and realize the power they have to change the education offered their child or children was not working. Title One schools are screwing these students over, too many of these parents allow other things to guide their focus away from their quality of their child’s education, and the children are the most loudly and publicly discussed for lessons not learned or the character or social deficiencies modeled.
I believe Dr. King would be vehemently pursuing the deficiencies in public education instead of being another group unwilling to change the problems because they are capitalizing from the problems in Title One Schools across the nation.
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Thank you and your reader, Diane, for sharing these quotes. I’ve often complained that the most critical element in our debates and arguments over education policy–the very definition of “education”–has been ignored almost completely. Instead we seem to treat education as something that teachers “do”. And we seem to treat what teachers “do” as a matter of technique, not substance. So, for modern Americans the meaning of “education” has degenerated into a pointless argument over pedagogy.
I call these pedagogical arguments pointless precisely because we won’t discuss what we want an educated American to look like. Sadly, most people I’ve talked to about this issue get stuck on such simplistic slogans as “job-ready” or “college-ready”, as if they have any idea what those terms mean. I’ve rarely heard anyone mention education in terms of preparing ourselves to participate in a democracy or have a good chance of living a full and happy life. Perhaps that’s not surprising, since most Americans historically have rejected education in favor of received wisdom.
Dr. King’s vision of education is soundly in the Western tradition of inquiry and discussion. His words echo the arguments of the classic thinkers and the original humanists of the Renaissance, and his fears can be found in the speeches of educators like Robert M. Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, and other social critics like Christopher Lasch, Erich Fromm, and more recently Chris Hedges. We should use their works as a guide to build a curriculum for a modern democracy. Only then can we debate the most efficient means for education.
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We should use their works as a guide to build a curriculum for a modern democracy.
Teacher preparation faculty will boycott such an effort, if E.D. Hirsch is correct. See his most recent book, Making Americans, and his response to Dr. Ravitch in Daedalus, Summer, 2002.
The public education doomsday clock continues to advance toward midnight…
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With the Common Core already developed by non-P-12 educators –much like E.D Hirsch’s qualifications for determining P-8 Core Knowledge– and required states and districts receiving RTTT funding, I think the horse is out of the barn. However, for anyone interested, those full text articles can be found online here: http://www.amacad.org/publications/summer2002/Su2002coverweb.pdf
Whether Teacher Ed would boycott regarding content specific to the disciplines covered in P-12 schools remains to be seen, since that’s not traditionally been dictated by colleges of education. It’s the Specialized Professional Associations (SPAs) (which most individual teacher educators belong to in their areas of expertise) that have had major input in the development of standards for their respective disciplines in the past. Of late, they have not been invited to the table much, if at all, along with the decision-making politicians, corporate sponsors, astro-turf foundations and their “reform” lackeys.
Like the leadership elsewhere, including the teachers’ unions and civil rights organizations, many SPA leaders seem to have caved to the likes of Obama/Duncan, Bill Gates et al and the almighty corporate dollar, while teacher educators and classroom teachers look on incredulously at how they’ve been sold down the river. I think it’s going to take a major grassroots effort by teachers, teacher educators, parents and concerned community members before we’re going to see a move away from the corporate agenda in education forthcoming.
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