The First Step to Marrying Science: Appreciate Every Quark… Quirk

Let’s face it: Science requires much love and attention. One must keep up with the current trends and continue to follow her work. Just like a marriage, one should love her every quirk. Tell her that she looks thin even though she looks fat. If she makes some bad cooking, tell her it was the finest meal you ever had. Please her, please her, and please her some more.

The problem with science is that as one matures, she becomes more complicated. It’s you, not her. Science changes, but so does everyone else. School requires that one learns specific scientific material. One can no longer study the science that they want. That is, no more reading about dinosaurs, no more eating dirt, and definitely no more fun with science.

As Judy Garland spoke about love, “For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.” When we are young, we get to choose our science. We choose to study dinosaurs or insects; science is speaking to our hearts and kissing our souls. When one gets to a school age, one must learn what the teacher and curriculum dictates. Sometimes this turns students away from science; she is now only whispering into our ears and kissing our lips. We are not open to loving her and appreciating her because we feel that we are being pushed to love her.

There is not a definite solution to help fix the school curriculum and encourage students to love science. It would take many years and many board rooms to fix that problem. However, if science writers could find a way to write in a more efficient and understanding manner, the public may learn to love dinosaurs and appreciate science again in order to grow old with that knowledge.

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.