Major challenges of education have long been to teach youth [and others]: to respect factual evidence; to critically examine such evidence with regard to its reliability, relevance and weight; to apply rigorous logic to such evidence leading to reasoned inferences and conclusions; and to discuss and debate the inferences and conclusions to test their probity and strength. The application of evidence and reason to govern the affairs of society has been employed since at least the time of Hammurabi (c.1792 BC) through Socrates (c. 469-300 BC) to the adoption of the 5th and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution and into modern times. Societal evolution has advanced and become more inclusive [with significant setbacks] over time largely as a result of this reliance upon critically evaluated and reasoned evidence.
Yet the PUTHOP Administration appears to mock and discard these processes and values. ["What you are seeing, is not what is really happening!" - PUTHOP] A cornerstone of US representative democracy charged with ensuring an informed electorate [gathering and disseminating information to be critically evaluated and used to form inferences and conclusions] is now under attack. [Labeled "the enemy of the people!" - PUTHOP] Substantial factions of the electorate disdain facts and reason, almost in cult-like fashion and embrace declarations by Administration and Congress that are deceptive, unreliable and often insupportable by evidence. The declarations often obscure actions designed to undermine the rights and well-being of the very public urged to embrace the deceit. These members of the public also encourage their children to ignore facts and reason and follow the lead of their parents and "leaders."
These "leaders" are now advocating for diversion of public taxpayer funds to support "choice" schools in which generalized principles of learning are supplanted and subordinated to insular and myopic versions of history and the world that align with this anti-intellectual trend.
What, then, should be the direction and future of education in a discursive context that not only devalues, but openly attacks evidence and reason as a basis for constructing knowledge? In the past [as well as in the present], pre-service teachers have expressed concern about attempting to address issues of inclusion and cultural responsiveness when parents with bigoted and privileged viewpoints might be antagonistic or disapproving. Now that perceived "risk" may extend to processes of teaching children to think critically and to research and support their conclusions and positions. [To be continued....]
