EDUCATION:

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

IN THE

 MODERN ERA

Challenges

In our modern era a valid but often unasked question is who and what is educating the upcoming generations? The average response would be the public and private school system. Is that correct? I posit that it is an input, but one that is dwarfed by the multi-channel dissemination of values, behavior and ethics of a 7/24/365 omnipresent media. The numbers are revealing. The upcoming generations ingest media instruction (i.e. the process of receiving information) totaling 2,693 hour per year.  Public school instruction is 1,195 hours. The curriculum of K-12 public education has a long pedigree, not so the modern media. What is being disseminated and by whom in the media classroom? It is the values and world view of the writers, producers and financiers of the content in mainstream T.V., Movies, Music as well as the News, Internet, etc.

 The images, actions, dialogue, and behaviors transmitted shape the worldview of the young. What are these images, actions and dialogue?

It is the fashions, values, morals, music, art, ethics, promiscuity, drug use and language of popular culture. It is as omnipresent as is advertising that often uses fear, envy, greed, lust, and insecurity as motivating agents. Given the billions of dollars spent on technology, tactics designee to stimulate and in some case overwhelm the sensory receptors of the human being traditional academic studies have a tough fight to cut through this tsunami and demonstrate necessity and relevance. I would go so far as to say they are losing the battle. In this environment what is and what should be the role of public education?

To be sure, modernity in 2018 is a circumstance without much precedent. Every day much of our society experiences life underpinned by a technological, distributive, abundant energy, medicinal, transportation, agricultural infrastructure that is so seamless and reliable that it is consumed like oxygen with little thought given to how and why. For those thinking this is hyperbole check out this extract from a housing study by the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory “

“In 1940 nearly half of houses (in the USA) lacked hot piped water, a bathtub or shower, or a flush toilet. Over a third of houses didn’t have a flush toilet. As late as 1960, over 25% of the houses in 16 states didn’t have complete plumbing facilities.”

The list goes on and on. Under these circumstances the average person was intimately familiar with the nuts and bolts of life, today this familiarity has little relevance to most people. We need no more blaring example that the program developed by Salena Zito and Harvard’s Institute for Politics in which, believe it or not, took a group of students to introduce them to a world outside the confinements of their, let’s face it, sheltered and privileged existence. That is not the issue however but rather their complete unfamiliarity with the people and nuts and bolts underpinning their daily experience. Think of it. Students from a prestigious university has to be educated to the reality and diversity of people that contribute and sustain modern life. If the supposedly best and brightest are, in this regard, this ignorant what of the rest of the young? Judging by the reactions, comments and realizations of the participants it was enriching and instructive. Hence an opportunity.

Opportunity

It is, in my opinion, unwise that the traditional subjects of study have been deemphasized or discarded. It is what it is. The issue is then how do we prepare students to navigate modernity with its myriad of options, life choices and behaviors? The evidence is in and many options are detrimental yet popularized by the culture and in some cases sustained by, also in my opinion, misguided government policies.   

In the last 50 years media and advertising have become omnipresent. Yet little is understood by the upcoming generations about the science behind it AND, it is science. It is for a reason that media and advertisers utilize the insight of neurology, psychology, biology, group dynamics, behaviorists, etc. biology, etc. My guess is that young people would be well served by understanding what and how what they consume so much of is made. The effects of drug use on brain chemistry and function is well known as well as the other medical, behavioral and legal issues that arise. Young people informed about the inescapable results and consequences of drug use (i.e. this is what happens regardless of the users’ motivations or rationalizations) can’t but help.

What of the culture’s enthrallment with sexual promiscuity? I’m no expert but pretty sure that humans have never need much encouragement to have sex. What changed? Simple sex has become a product marketed as a consumer/recreational experience. What is left out is science, biology, disease, abortion and child abuse from the enticing and consequence free images and lifestyles promoted. It has been almost 50 years since the sexual revolution the evidence is abundant. I fail to see how the upcoming generation would not profit from understanding that there are consequences to promiscuity. There are other modern realities such as obesity, that the young receive little education to the causes and effects of this condition. The list is ponderous and long.

Conclusion   

It is my experience that K-12 teachers mentor just as much as they educate. Their commitment and dedication to our youth is self-evident. A special bond is often built between student and teacher that with little prompting a person will name a teacher from the past, perhaps long past that meant so much to them. It is these formative years that much good can be accomplished. When should the curriculum be introduced? I’d say the sooner the better, Remember, the media school will have had them in their classroom for perhaps thousands of hours before they get to primary school instructors.

The phrase “it’s a human right” is much used and frankly abused.  Equipping the upcoming generation to the realities of popular culture, advertising and the science of promiscuity and drug abuse is certainly one of them.