Wholly agree. Indeed, I think all generations need to fully comprehend and remember those things.
We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work.
-- Thomas A. Edison
I don't agree that is the case. I don't because I'm keenly aware that becoming educated/informed, developing the understanding of the nature described above, simply put, learning, requires two things:
- That the information needed to develop the understanding be made available -- American schools, libraries, teachers, and the Internet do this.
- That one "consume" that information and successfully endeavor to master it -- Not nearly enough kids do this.
It is not a school system's or teacher's fault that students don't master the "context, causes, effects, and relative significance" of anything. School systems and teachers all but spoon feed students information -- imagine having to learn it all on one's own....no structured delivery approach, no independent and objective means of assessing one's progress, etc. -- as best they know how at any given moment. Some are better at it than others, but at the end of the day, it's the student's and his/her parents' obligation to ensure the student masters the information and learning process because the greatest single beneficiary of his/her doing so is the student. It'd be nice if we could just upload information and the ability to adequately evaluate it, but we can't.
Everyone's job is to "git 'er done." For adults, it's whatever they must do (lawfully) to make a living. For students it's whatever they must do to develop a foundation upon which they can build a life upon becoming adults. That any given student doesn't do so is not the American educational system's fault.
Am I suggesting that schooling cannot be improved? Not at all. I'm saying that where there are gaps between the ideal delivery of education and the actual delivery of education, it is nonetheless a student's and parents' burden to fill the gaps, and neither the student nor his/her parents' failure to fill the gaps is someone else's fault. They may not like that they have to "step-up," it may be unfair that they have to and others don't (and, yes, society can work to attenuate that inequity) but in the "here and now," step-up they must because the consequences of not doing so are dreadful.
The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.
-- John F. Kennedy