Intelligent Design and the Education Crisis – No I’m Not Talking About Evolution Today

Education is one of the things that nearly every American agrees is important. I am one of those people. I do everything in my power to give my children every educational opportunity. I was well-pleased with my education choices when, today in my child’s 3rd-grade class, the teacher turned on some music, and half of the children were excited because it was Beethoven, and they each spontaneously told which Beethoven piece was their favorite.

However, to educate properly, the primary principle that you must operate with is this – education needs to be sensitive to the nature of humans. If your educational philosophy or your political philosophy of education fails to take into account the nature of humans and how they learn, the final result will be that you spend a whole lot of money, and no one gets educated. That’ pretty much sums up where we are headed.

There are so many problems with the educational system if you wrote a book it would have to touch upon only the most flagrant shortcomings.

But it has been so for ever so long.

Years ago when I was in high school the principal of this small rural school taught a class called civics. What I was supposed to gain from it I was never clear on so I just sat and slept, unfortunately in the direct line of sight of the principal.

When he could tolerate my obvious napping no more he woke me up and asked why I did so. And I simply said what he was teaching was not worth staying awake for. And that further no one else would ever think so either, no prospective employer, mate, friend, instructor, whatever would ever care nor would I if the whole course were abolished. Therefore the best part of a lovely spring day was being wasted for everyone, I understood he was earning a living, I was not, but even so there were only so many springtimes left in his life (and mine)at that.

In short, if I'm to trade something (my time) that money can't buy how am I to justify the price?

That’s the other side - how much is this education costing compared to the benefit? But at first it is good to consider that even if we discard cost/benefit analysis, we need to consider if our methods actually produce the intended results? And what of the unintended ones? Materialism as a philosophy has blinded us to the way humans work, and this is what is most often missed in conservative/liberal discussions.

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