I have a solution for the destruction of America’s statues — simply eliminate nomenclature that identifies the subject, and treat them as what they are, objects of art.
Education is loosely defined by Webster’s New World Dictionary as “1. The process of training and developing the knowledge, skill, mind and character by formal schooling, teaching and training. 2. A formal schooling at an institution of learning.”
My simplistic definition of education would be “Learning is a process that provides a person the ability to make decisions based on fact, not fiction.”
Both Webster’s definition and mine are worlds apart from that being integrated in the minds of today’s student bodies in the United States.
Plato, an Athenian philosopher during the classical period in Ancient Greece, founder of the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world, said “The direction in which education starts a person will determine their future life.” If a person is taught right from wrong as an early admonition, he or she will generally follow the same path.
Education in the U.S. is no different than in the days of Plato, except the teaching of young Americans has been politicized. U.S. schools should be politically neutral and not used as a means to further an agenda of either the Democrats or Republicans. Unfortunately today, politics permeates every facet of American life, and the education of America’s children cannot escape the tentacles of political destruction. Sick politics and even sicker politicians are leading our country on a path to oblivion.
In U.S. colleges and universities, ultra-liberal education is dominant. Left-leaning professors now enjoy a 13 to 1 ratio over conservative faculty, and the ratio is growing. The great majority of academics believe America is a cancer that needs revolutionary change that will reduce or destroy a presumed culture of enslavement. Some American companies are behind this thought process
If Google and Microsoft, two activist “dot.com” companies, want to help the financial plight of Americans, and especially African-Americans, they could bring back to the U.S. the thousands of excellent paying jobs they have exported to Third World countries. Google and Microsoft employees have been instrumental in protesting the treatment of African Americans, yet are silent when their own companies deny jobs to all Americans through their globalization efforts.
Gerard Baker addressed this dilemma in his weekly Wall Street Journal commentary. He said, “All the while the capitalism that had produced so much opportunity for so many has become increasingly a vehicle of power for a few mega-companies in finance and technology. The modern woke corporation publicly disdains and derides the values on which the nation — and its profits — were built, even as it pursues global opportunities at the expense of American communities. It won’t be enough to reassert America’s historic virtues. It will require weakening the power of the totalitarians on campus, ensuring access for all voices on tech platforms and holding to account the lawless mobs defacing and defaming the nation’s legacy. But it will also require addressing the rot of American capitalism, reining in the power of bloated monopolies and ensuring that corporations prioritize Americans over their globalist progressive agendas.”
Personally, education was the key that unlocked the door for incredible opportunities. Without a college degree, any hope of advancement was limited. My employer, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., did not care about the nature of my degree, just that I had achieved a recognition from Auburn University of having graduated in some discipline.
But should a college degree carry such importance when deciding on future advancement and responsibilities for employees? Men like Henry Ford, of Ford Motor Company; Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers; Bill Gates of Microsoft; and Larry Ellison of Oracle fame had no college degree, but became highly successful. Being an entrepreneur is a little different than being an employee of an established company, but not much. The degree just shows a person has finished something.
I am not broad brushing the entire education community, but today’s teachers are doing little to accomplish one of Plato’s platitudes — instructing students how to define right from wrong.
John F. Floyd is a Gadsden native who graduated from Gadsden High School in 1954. He formerly was director of United Kingdom manufacturing, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., vice president of manufacturing and international operations, General Tire & Rubber Co., and director of manufacturing, Chrysler Corp. He can be reached at johnfloyd538@gmail.com. The opinions reflected are his own.
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