Schooling for personal and societal good
Your June 27 Perspective editorial raises the question of “Cultivating a capacity to understand big ideas” in students of high school age. As one who spent 35 years of my life discussing “big ideas” with college and university students, l admit to being pleasantly surprised to learn that in France, all high school seniors (well, vocational students are exempted—see below) must write a four hour “rite of passage” exam at graduation in which they are challenged to show that they know something about the meaning and importance of such big ideas as justice, freedom, democracy, truth, and happiness. The French educational establishment clearly believes that such understanding contributes to the maintenance of a good society as well as to the living of good lives by the individuals in that society.
In contemporary America, the big idea for many students seems to be to choose those educational offerings that hold the greatest promise of securing a high-paying job — or securing a job at all. And in contemporary America, there are plenty of prominent and powerful individuals who assert that the big idea called “truth” itself is of little value in comparison to the belief that “might makes right” and “relativism rules”.
It must be said, of course, that learning how to earn a living matters, especially given the spreading fear of artificial intelligence threatening to remove many job opportunities once available to their parents’ lives. Indeed, economic arrangements for ensuring full employment may well deserve the name of another “big idea.”
One flaw worth noting in the French program is their exclusion of students in vocational programs from the study of the big ideas. It is at least worth considering that all members of society, vocational students included, will benefit both society and themselves if they have had some opportunity to share in understanding the meaning and value of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.