Education

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{{cquote|An ignorant community is a blind instrument of their own destruction.|||Simón Bolívar}}
{{cquote|[[War]]s are won by teachers.|||[[Vladimir Putin]] in 2024 during [[Russian invasion of Ukraine|his war against Ukraine]], promoting [[propaganda]] in education<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/07/russia-universities-education-putin-overhaul/ To please Putin, universities purge liberals and embrace patriots: Russian university leaders are imbuing the country’s education system with patriotism to favor Putin, quashing Western influences and dissent.] by Mary Ilyushina (May 7, 2024 at 6:35 a.m. EDT) ''The Washington Post''.</ref>}}

'''Education''' is the act or process of acquiring or imparting [[knowledge]] or skills, especially at a school.  It can also refer to the knowledge or skills acquired by this process, as in "level of education", or to a particular kind of instruction or training, such as "physical education".  "To educate" is synonymous with "to teach".

Education is the cure for [[ignorance]]. Members of an educated [[society]] are less likely to believe in [[myth]]s, [[woo]], and [[pseudoscience]].<ref group=note>Witness the {{wpl|medieval university||.}}</ref> Perhaps this explains why entities such as the [[Seventh-Day Adventism#Education|Seventh-Day Adventist Church]] and the [[Church of Scientology]] and [[Erhard Seminars Training|Landmark Education]] place such a high value and spend such a high proportion of their budgets on self-serving educational activities. [[Conspiracy theorists]] often conflate education with [[indoctrination]]. This is often due to them not having been taught to evaluate and process information properly and thus [[Projection|believing the rest of the world thinks in the same way as them.]] Authoritarian regimes routinely tailor public education to suit their own self-serving purposes.

{{cquote|How can ordinary people fight back against these erasures of non-dominant perspectives? To answer this question, we might begin by seeking to understand what [[fascists]] fear most about education. Virtually every advancement that society has made toward greater [[equality]] began with educators. [[African American|Black]] teachers in the [[Jim Crow]] era were a bulwark against [[segregationist]] propaganda, training the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and giving Black citizens the tools, in the words of the Harvard historian Jarvis Givens, "to imagine a world outside of the confines of Jim Crow."<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfibFyXVT3E The Black Teacher Archive Launches at Harvard University] by Harvard Graduate School of Education (Oct 2, 2023) ''YouTube''.</ref>|||Jason Stanley<ref>''Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future'' by Jason Stanley (2024) One Signal Publishers / Atria. ISBN 9781668056912.</ref>{{rp|23}}}}

==Types of education==
===Science===
More than merely relating [[fact]]s about [[science]], good science education aims to teach students the proper [[Scientific method|way to "do" science]] and additionally promotes [[Essay:scientific consensus#Why are position statements on evolution made?|scientific literacy]].{{cn}} Scientific literacy and [[critical thinking]] skills are essential for living and competing in a technological world.<ref group=note>This explains the relative successes achieved by countries such as [[North Korea]], [[Saudi Arabia]], and the [[Soviet Union]].</ref> Organizations such as the [[National Center for Science Education]] in the United States of America and the [[British Centre for Science Education]] provide resources to help teachers of science improve their instruction.{{cn}}

[[Christianity|Christian]] [[Fundamentalism|fundamentalists]], in an effort to advance their form of [[religion]], have [[History|historically]] attempted to get their own version of [[Abiogenesis|"origins theory"]] into science classes under the guises of "[[creation science]]" and "[[intelligent design]]."  Although these [[worldview]]s sound like science, they are not, and [[Teach the controversy|pressuring teachers into presenting them as such]] is not conducive to students' understanding of science. Numerous [[Essay:Scientific consensus|position-statements]] from science organizations as well as court decisions confirm this conclusion.{{cn}}

===Sex===
{{main|Sex education}}
Sex education usually refers to teaching [[children]] about [[human]] [[sex]]uality at school. This can take the form of [[abstinence programs]], or it can actually be helpful.{{cn}}

===Classical===
A grounding in ancestral (but slightly different) cultures like those of [[ancient Greece]] and [[Rome]] allegedly broadens/rounds the mind and provides some points of comparison with present-day thought and [[society]]. Wannabe generals may also get to translate accounts of 18th-century military exploits into Ciceronian [[Latin]].{{cn}}

==Institutions of education==
===Family===
Education for young children begins at home, primarily from their parents. This is an important place to learn language and [[Morality|morals]]. Although parents continue to provide some aspects of their education, most children in industrialized [[nation]]s subsequently enter a form of mass education outside of the home.

===Public/State schools===
{{main|Public education}}
Similar to state schools or [[government]] schools in other places, [[United States]] public schools are compulsory and free to consumers, being funded and directed at the federal, [[state]], and local levels.  Local school boards have some latitude regarding curriculum, and they, along with state boards and legislatures, are common places for fundamentalists to present their [[Anti-science|anti-evolution]] case.

Public school teachers, also known as educators, are state-[[credential]]ed professionals.

In the [[UK]], the term 'public school' means an elite [[Public school#British public schools|private school]] (originally called that because they were open to all religious denominations). British people use the term "State School" to refer to publicly-funded schools.

===Homeschools===
{{main|Homeschooling}}
An alternative to public education or private schools, homeschooling offers parents a sizeable degree of control over what their children learn. Educating is done by tutors or by the parents themselves (or by the children following their own interests with minimal parental intervention, also called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling unschooling]). An [[Internet]] search revealed numerous websites offering resources for parents considering this approach to education.

===Higher education===
Higher education involves study after the [[Hell#Hell|high school]] (secondary) level. The term is usually identified with colleges, universities, institutes of technology, professional schools, and graduate schools, but can include vocational schools, teacher-training schools, community colleges, academies, and seminaries. Generally, a degree, diploma, or certificate is awarded at the end of a course of study.

Colleges and universities may be state-controlled or private. The latter are often run by religious groups, and there are many fine Christian fundamentalist colleges in the United States, including [[Liberty University]] and [[Bob Jones University]]. Other types of non-state tertiary institutions include underground universities, in which students and teachers prize and carry out unofficial education despite official sanctions — examples include the Polish "Flying Universities".<ref group=note>{{wpa|Flying University}}</ref>

[[Professor]]s at [[Accreditation|accredited]] colleges and universities are expected to have attained a doctorate degree or at least a master's.

A [[diploma mill]] is a college at which one can obtain an unrecognized degree with little effort for the purposes of flaunting it. [[Patriot Bible University]] and [[Universal Life Church]] exemplify such institutions.

While mostly unnecessary for the majority of citizens in agrarian and industrial economies, higher education is vital in the specialized post-industrial economies of the developed world. Nevertheless, many on the right refuse to acknowledge this, even claiming that higher education is leebral propaganda. The necessity of an educated, critical-thinking workforce and citizenry is why many have advocated for free higher education (as generally available in, for example, the Federal Republic of Germany), because this is a necessity in the developed world's economy.

Public universities in [[Virginia]] have a long history of displacing [[African American|black]] people from their homes using the threat or usage of [[eminent domain]].<ref name="propublica">[https://www.propublica.org/article/these-virginia-universities-expanded-by-displacing-black-residents "Virginia’s Public Universities Have a Long History of Displacing Black Residents"] - ''ProPublica''</ref> To quote ''ProPublica'':

{{quotebox|In the second half of the 20th century, the establishment and expansion of public universities across Virginia uprooted hundreds of Black families, hindering them from accumulating wealth in the most American way — homeownership. Old Dominion and the University of Virginia — the system’s flagship, founded by Thomas Jefferson — dislodged Black communities, according to contemporary news accounts, the universities’ official histories and former residents. They either acquired properties through legal takings, or families sold them because they faced the prospect of an eminent domain seizure.<ref name="propublica"/>}}

While {{wpl|gentrification}} has been disastrous for poor, racial, and otherwise marginalized communities across the country, this has been especially pronounced in Virginia due to Virginia's long history of [[racist]] [[Jim Crow]]-era ''de jure'' [[segregation]] policies including {{wpl|redlining||.}}<ref name="propublica"/> The expansion of institutions of higher learning in Virginia has only exacerbated this problem.<ref name="propublica"/> The state government of Virginia often used eminent domain predominantly against black communities, and this increased the racial wealth gap even further as it denied black folk access to affordable home ownership.<ref name="propublica"/>

===Self===
Self-education, or [[autodidact]]icism, provides a nearly limitless source of knowledge after one's official schooling has ceased. In order to self-educate, one must learn how to learn rather than how to merely be taught. It is possible to find material for self-education on television, in libraries, and on the Internet.  

Autodidactism is of immense private value, but the actual societal value placed on learning becomes clear when a highly educated autodidact attempts to get a job without possession of a 
magically blessed and inscribed holy piece of paper
 degree.

==See also==
{{collist|2|
*[[Academic]]
*[[Creationism in public education]]
*[[Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District|''Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District'']]
*[[Nationalism in history textbooks]]
*[[No Child Left Behind]]
*[[School vouchers]]
*[[Texans for Better Science Education]]
}}

==External links==
*[http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4962 National Science Education Standards], The National Academies Press. 1996.

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
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[[Category:Education| ]]

Categories: Education