The First Step to Strengthening Democracy: Educate Liberally

Education can be said to be the most powerful weapon of a human. However, through the proper use of an education, vaccines can be created, treaties can be signed, and discoveries can be made. Much debate occurs as to the most efficient way to educate American students. Some believe that the best education still follows the 3R’s: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Others believe in strict trade school learning, to be taught only what you will need to become a good citizen to society or to enter a career. However, there is a third school of thought: a liberal education.

As Robert M. Hutchins said, “A liberal education... frees a man from the prison-house of his class, race, time, place, background, family and even his nation.” What America needs is to break each and every one of these barriers in order to strengthen our democracy. People need to learn to break the status quo. Education is becoming more of a way to transfer the government’s ideas to the people, without learning to think for oneself.

From the words of Albert Einstein, “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.” Students may not retain the lesson on the area of a trapezoid or the depth of the ocean floor. However, students will remember the liberal arts aspect of their education. When we teach students to think for themselves, they will have more ideas. As people have more ideas, more problems can be fixed in society. As we fix more problems, our democracy has the chance to be strengthened. Liberal education alone will not strengthen democracy, but it will provide our students with the means to fix it.