Last February, Donald Trump made a controversial narrative about General Jack Pershing's execution of Muslim prisoners in the Philippines in 1903, not to mention his announcement that he would destroy the Islamic terrorists overnight once elected as the president of the United States. Trump's statements highlighted the observation of Matthew Arnold in his poem, "Dover Beach," where the rise of "ignorant armies" was a result of bad education.
It has been a known fact that education is essential to the democracy and way of life of the American people. In fact, U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. once said that education is not only vital to the nation's economic progress but also to its freedom, Parent Herald previously noted.
These aforementioned statements seemed to resonate Matthew Arnold's beliefs that the main purpose of education is for industrial democracy. But as the American education tumbles, modern democracy might lead to confusion, violence and the rise of what is called as "ignorant armies."
In an article published on The Daily Beast, writer Sol Stern outlined how the American education shook the nation's democracy's foundation, citing the education philosophies of Matthew Arnold. According to Stern, the resurgence of the "child-centered" education and the progressive education revolution have caused the ignorance of both young and old Americans when it comes to history and civics.
Since the desertion of teaching important knowledge in schools would have adverse implications to the well-being and cultural unity of the United States, scholar E.D. Hirsch Jr. urged experts to restore a comprehensible grade-by-grade curriculum to thwart the disastrous effects of progressive and child-centered education. Unfortunately, with today's digital-age revolution, millennials have long forgotten the importance of cultural literacy.
Due to the distractions of digital age social media and technology, the younger generations are no longer interested to read historical and cultural books, which further hamper their intellectual curiosity. This digital age is also one of the reasons for the collapse of American education, leading to the toxicity of the society and democracy.
Meanwhile, Lawrence Journal-World has recently outlined why there's a need to restore the confidence of Americans in the value of education. As a matter of fact, 57 percent of Americans have lost their confidence in the quality and availability of higher education while 68 percent are unhappy with the nation's K-12 education system.
With the alarming poll results, the publication stressed that education should be added to the agenda as the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections loom. But if education remains to be neglected, then a detrimental future awaits the nation and its people.
