Status Updates From The Death of Why?: The Decl...

Of course, when it comes to politics, young people have to deal with the system they are given.

It’s never too late to change anyone’s habits. 🤓

“Social Justice teaching is a frivolous waste of precious school hours, grievously harmful to poor children, who start out with a disadvantage,” Stern writes. “School is the only place where they are likely to obtain the academic knowledge that could make up for the educational deprivation they suffer in their homes.”

The violence in L.A., committed primarily by African-Americans, stemmed from a profound sense of powerlessness in our public sphere-no voice, no power, no recourse, and no way of holding accountable those who would perpetuate injustice.

For example, a bill “to promote youth financial education” was first introduced in 1999 and has been introduced in every congressional session since. 💰

Civics programs in the 1960s were not very effective at imparting knowledge or excitement about political history or contemporary events. 👩🏻‍🏫

Questions are the tools of educators, but what kind of questions are best to ask? It depends on what we expect children to be able to do. Most questions asked and tested over the past hundred years simply force students to recall information: who, what, where, when, how. It is, as one educator put it, an exercise akin to the game Trivial Pursuit.

Now, said Drabinski, students think all research will be easy. “The Internet makes research easier until it doesn’t, and then students aren’t equipped to deal with things not working, or going wrong. [The Internet] de-skills you.”

The Internet is more than technology. It’s more than a medium. It’s an environment.

I believe that the Internet, and the role that it plays in our culture, is changing us. It’s changing how we think about information, how we learn about the world around us, even how we define our notions of truth. But most importantly, the Internet is changing how we think of the meaning of a question, and this matters to the future of democracy. 💻

And, yes, the Internet does make it pretty easy to encounter viewpoints with which you disagree— a lot easier than moving to another town. But good faith consideration and engagement is of those on the other side is not rewarded as much as creating or joining a strong community of sameness. 🌎

When we asked respondents how they would have liked their member of Congress to vote on these bills, the answer was overwhelmingly in favor of a yes vote, among Democrats and Republicans alike. But when we asked, How did your member of Congress vote on this bill?, the overwhelming response was Don’t know. 🗳

When we send children the message that they should enjoy the very process of learning, we cultivate in them the kind of motivation that will serve them as they confront the obstacles that are inevitable in life.

We look for answers in ideology, whether religious, political, or cultural. 🤓

Questions beget change. And despite its political utility during election years, change is a scary idea. I see a country mitigating the risk of inquiry. We numb inquisitiveness with consumerism. We fool ourselves into devaluing it in our public schools. We escape it through technology. Questions are a risky business. There’s a reason Socrates was sentenced to death, after all.

We cannot know everything. Knowledge changes. Absorbing and acting on today’s answers is simply not enough.
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