Valentine to public education

(2/2025) Public school was designed to help society by guiding our children to grow up to be productive citizens, ready and able to interact with other people in society.

Education starts with common language. Teachers use language to build understanding. Having a shared method of communication gives us a reason to write it down. Having something to share gives us a reason to read. Having a system of commerce gives us a reason for addition and subtraction. Readin’, writin’, ‘rithemtic. Another reason three is a magic number.

With language we learn to listen to the voice of authority from a young age. Our first and strongest leaders—parents, teachers. They instill respect for leadership in our social structure of employment, government, religion.

Our public education system has gotten more complicated since Horace Mann advocated for a public school system in the 1830’s. That’s because humans are complicated.

Public school provides a place to debate the historical causes of man’s inhumanity to man, and the merits of solutions. Slow, passive resistance that changes the course of a country, Gandhi in India, the Underground Railroad in our own country. The big picture reasons for human suffering always include breaking the Golden Rule. The solutions always include following the Golden Rule.

Suffering, exclusion, internment camps, " No [insert anyone you don’t like] allowed", stay out of the bathroom. There are people actually spending time, right now, making it impossible for other people to use a restroom.

Education taught me the lessons others learned from breaking commandments, and committing the deadly sins. Greed, arrogance, flying too close to the sun. Do we have the Icarus administration, or simply a living example of the Peter Principle. Don’t remember the Peter Principle? Educators, and my parents, taught me to "look it up, you’ll remember it longer."

Historical examples of breaking the Golden Rule? Slavery, in any and all eras, is as simple to understand as it is bad. If you wouldn’t want to be treated as a slave, don’t treat others as slaves.

Education teaches that humans can rationalize anything. Right now, in 2025, there is a rationalizing of changing everything because the Icarus administration said so. There are such great things that will happen, and you will get everything you have always deserved when all the bad things are removed. By me.

History class taught me a lot about how compromise was reached so that we now have our Constitution. Successfully following the Golden Rule requires us to compromise. Everything about the US Constitution is some form of codification of the Golden Rule.

Civics class taught me that my vote matters. I do not have to vote for cruel people so that I can get my righteous eggs at the grocery store. Just because an Icarus administration is behaving as though to protect property rights some American citizens can be stripped of their personal and civil rights, no American has to support these actions. Firing career government employees without cause, threatening states with withholding lifesaving funds, isolating lifesaving medical research from the public, these actions break everything about the Golden Rule. These acts are performed by newly elected or appointed people, many who claim to be devout Christians.

We may disagree on what is good for our country, but most people could agree that the Golden Rule is the most universal tenant of Judeo-Christian history.

The Maryland Toleration Act of 1649 was a first, and pretty selective, attempt at religious tolerance in the Colonies. The Colonists were newly arrived from England, where they took turns killing each other. The New World bought new opportunities to compromise. Not to mention reasons to compromise, with all of huge amounts of property available to grab. The main goal of the Toleration Act was to keep the peace between Catholics and Protestants. Eventually that first compromise led to our First Amendment.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The founding Fathers knew from experience that a fight over religion was a loser for everyone. No exceptions. The ultimate lesson in the Golden Rule.

School was not meant to make parents feel good. In our modern lives we have the ability to make our social norms, and our customary interactions with each other almost anything we could wish for. The lesson from teachers and from our educational system is to be careful what you wish for, in particular if your wish does not incorporate the Golden Rule. Wishes that thoughtlessly exclude other people can have repercussions persisting through generations.

It takes each of us to have a healthy society. It takes each of us to support the foundation of our society. Our education system is one of the cornerstones. To have a school system that teaches children to respect each of us and our society, requires investment of our attention on the body elected to manage that system. Recordings of the Frederick County Maryland Board of Education meetings can be found on the Frederick County website.

Democrats make lots of mistakes, but the common thread is that each of us has the right to be an individual and live life on their own terms. Even Icarus is free to fly into the sun. Let’s hope very few are dragged there with him.

(Answer: The Peter Principle is the condition of a person rising up the employment ladder to the level of their incompetence. You should still look it up.)