We speak of making America great again, and I would be certain we think that will not happen unless we strengthen our education system.
I will agree. But, I will also suggest that the single most important component of a good education system is partially absent from ours.
America will only be as great as its ability to think.
If we are to better our education system, we should emphasize teaching the student to think. For my part -- reflecting on my education -- I wonder if I did not benefit more from playing chess during lunch than I did from any of the classes.
Classes in critical thinking? I believe that a good idea. Classes on current events? Yes, and encourage the students to think out the issues and to consider on what is best. Train them not to just search out arguments that favor either conservatives or liberals, but to seek the truth, whichever side it falls on. Classes with scientific experiments? Yes, and teach them to come up with their own experiments as they search for how things work not by being told, but by finding out on their own.
The secret to making America great again is to teach it how to think. If we train the mind to seek solutions, it will find them. If we start the practice of thinking as children, the trait will continue with us when we become adults.
Practice thinking, and you will get better at it -- the same as you get better at anything if you do it enough.
It seems there was a time when all inventions (well, the large share) came out of America. Was this because our inventors breathed American air or touched American soil? Was there just something magical about living here? Was it because this nation was blessed? I might go along with that. Was it because of our education system? Surely, that must have been a factor.
But, as much as any other reason, it must have been because Americans were thinkers. Whatever it was in their culture that spawned the art of thinking, I can only speculate. Perhaps it was a discussion of current events, whereas those living under authoritarian governments subjected themselves without giving thought to public issues. Public issues? There were none in some of these countries. You did what you were told and that was the end of it. You didn't even think about whether abortion was good or bad.
Whatever brought it on, I might not know, for certain. But I would be certain America had more than its share of inventions only because it did more than its share of thinking. Thinking was a practice, and inventions were the result.
If we are to make America great again, this will go a long ways in getting us there.
One parting thought, that comes to me, just as I'm about to stop. Today, we also have great public debate. But, I wonder if we are more divided. I wonder if when people think, they pursue only reasons to believe what they already think. If they are against allowing too many immigrants in, they give thought only to that side of the argument, and reject anything from the other side.
If a mind can be trained to think, it can also be trained against thinking. How you train a mind is how it works. Have we as a nation -- as we have become increasingly divided -- lost our ability to have open minds?
We have sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind. Maybe. As we lost our desire to be civil, we lost our ability to think.
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