We Do Need Some Education – In Western Civilization

Pink Floyd told listeners, “We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control.” Yet maybe schoolchildren do need some education – specifically about Western civilization and the values that sustain it.

A recent Rasmussen Reports survey of American adults found that 71% believe it is important for schools to teach the traditional values of Western civilization. That’s up from 67% a year ago, with 42% saying it is “very important.”

Americans apparently want it taught. But how are the schools doing? Not particularly well, according to the same survey. Only 28% believe public schools are doing a good or excellent job of teaching traditional Western civilization, while 46% rate them poorly.

Why does this matter? By Western civilization, I mean the intellectual and political tradition that produced constitutional government, individual liberty, equality before the law, religious freedom, freedom of speech, free inquiry, scientific reasoning, market economics, and continuous technological innovation.

America is hardly a perfect embodiment of those principles. No country is. But for nearly 250 years, the United States has perhaps been the most consequential experiment in putting many of them into practice.

A civilization cannot perpetuate itself if succeeding generations are never taught what created it. What do Americans want schools to do?

Almost two-thirds of those surveyed, 62%, believe that public schools should begin the day with students reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

That was routine for many of us, particularly Baby Boomers. We recited the Pledge and often sang patriotic songs, eventually knowing many of them by heart, from “America the Beautiful” to “God Bless America” to “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”

Starting the school day with the Pledge is easy. Perhaps surprisingly in our hyper-partisan age, there is significant bipartisan support for it. Seventy-eight percent of Republicans support a daily Pledge, as do 55% of Democrats and 57% of unaffiliated voters.

Partisan differences widen when respondents are asked how important teaching traditional Western values is. Republicans are considerably more likely than Democrats or unaffiliated voters to say it is “very important.”

Perhaps the most revealing divide, however, isn’t political. It’s generational. Two-thirds of Americans 65 and older say that teaching traditional Western values is very important. Among Americans under 30, only 21% agree.

That is a remarkable 46-point generational chasm. It also raises an obvious chicken-and-egg question.

Older Americans grew up learning more traditional American history and civics, reciting the Pledge, waving flags, and singing patriotic songs. They now place considerable importance on teaching those traditions to younger generations.

Younger Americans place far less importance on these. Perhaps that is partly because they were taught less about them in the first place.  If so, we have created a self-perpetuating cycle. One generation receives less instruction about its civilization and therefore sees less reason to teach it to the next generation, which then receives even less.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and apparently so does a curriculum. If schools don’t teach children about the civilization they inherited, other philosophies and priorities will inevitably fill the void.

The political leanings of the teaching profession are also worth noting. According to the Pew Research Center, 58% of K-12 public school teachers identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with 35% who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party.

That doesn’t mean Democratic teachers are plotting against Plato and Aristotle. Pew also found that 42% of teachers trust neither political party more when it comes to shaping the school curriculum. But it does mean the political worldview of the teaching profession differs substantially from that of the country as a whole. And the curriculum inevitably reflects, at least to some degree, the assumptions and priorities of those who decide what gets taught.

Those priorities have changed. Schools today devote considerable attention to diversity, equity, gender identity, systemic racism, and other contemporary social issues. Some of these topics may merit classroom discussion. But what gets squeezed out?

There are only so many hours in a school day and only so many years before a student graduates. Perhaps understanding constitutional government, individual liberty, civic responsibility, Western history, and the intellectual foundations of the country in which students live deserves at least as prominent a place as other subjects.

The Rasmussen survey suggests that Americans think so.

Teaching Western civilization involves acknowledging its flaws, like slavery, racism, and imperialism, but also its achievements, such as abolition, representative government, individual rights, religious tolerance, scientific progress, and increased prosperity. Students should learn both.

Teaching children why their civilization exists, how it developed, where it failed, what it accomplished, and which principles enabled it to correct its failures is different from teaching them that their civilization is perfect.

Pink Floyd warned against thought control and “dark sarcasm in the classroom.” Fair enough. But education isn’t indoctrination simply because children learn where their civilization came from, what it believes, and why it has endured.

Otherwise, another generation may leave school knowing everything that is wrong with Western civilization — and very little of what made it worth preserving. And that would really leave them as just another brick in the wall.

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a Colorado-based ophthalmologist who writes frequently about medicine, science, and public policy.

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