Our school system seems to be designed to meet standards rather than to help young people learn and be empowered to attain their full potential.
Many key topics are minimized or ignored completely. For example:
- Global warming and how it affects weather, wildlife, and crops — and how it undermines future generations.
- How the industrialized food system destroys health & ecosystems.
- How governments & law enforcement destroy — instead of defending — basic freedoms in the Bill of Rights.
- The extent and impacts of economic justice & extreme inequality.
- Militarism & drone warfare, and the effects on our domestic society as well as those in countries we attack.
- A justice system that is so ineffective and corrupt that it completely fails to provide public safety, especially for minorities.
- A long history of serious human rights abuses by the U.S.—going back to colonialism and continuing today.
When schools minimize exploration of these topics, they are failing to prepare students to become active members of a participatory democratic society.