On a recent trip to Vermont to sample the first-of-the-season maple syrup and experience a slog through mud season, we saw a sign in a local restaurant and bike shop that read, “Education is important, but … bikes is importanter.”
At first, waiving the irony of those words, my English major-trained mind winced at the dissonance of the disintegrating grammar. As I write down this quotation, I’m surprised that even my computer did not immediately catch the singular verb with the plural noun. But it did flag the non-word.
It occurred to me that this slogan might in some way be fodder for a My Turn piece on education. But then it also occurred to me that the slogan might be an affront to my cyclist friends. However, after reading an article that quotes Pranav Jani, associate professor of English at Ohio State University, who said, “Academic institutions are some of the last places in our society where you can openly talk about a wide range of topics,” I’ve thrown caution to the wind! From bicycles and grammar, to education and indoctrination, to politics and religion — all are topics for open conversation.
Education has mixed reviews. Some view it as teaching critical thinking, developing the skills necessary to compare and contrast viewpoints, learning from the failures of the past, and imagining the possibilities for the future. Others view education as indoctrination: insisting on the primacy of one historical narrative, one outlook, one acceptable future.
This view, that the role of education is to teach only one particular point of view, is endangering the effectiveness of public education while empowering the authoritarian. Kings and autocrats seek the demise of education that teaches critical thinking. A well-educated public will sooner or later notice that the king wears no clothes! Randi Weingarten, in her book, “Why Fascists Fear Teachers,” writes that in 2023 alone, 110 bills were introduced across the U.S. to control what teachers can and cannot do.
To justify interfering with the education process and its content, authoritarians seek to define the free speech and open dialogue of critical thinking as indoctrination which must be stopped. At the same time, they cling to the conviction that their singular point of view is not indoctrination but the only right way to educate. This is one of the factors that is influencing the movement to transfer support for public education to funding private schools.
Public schools bring together students from diverse backgrounds, traditions, cultures, wealth and talents. This mix of students is a primary setting for the practice of critical thinking. Private schools can create a more homogeneous student body susceptible to indoctrination into a singular religious, political, social viewpoint.
Contrary to the movement toward privatization of education, Thomas Jefferson famously argued that widespread education is essential to protect liberty from tyranny. He proposed free, tax-supported public schools to cultivate critical thinking, enabling citizens to make informed decisions and guard against corruption. He understood that a democracy can only exist with an enlightened citizenry. “That talent and virtue, needed in a free society, should be educated regardless of wealth, birth or other accidental condition; That the children of the poor must be thus educated at common expense.”
Weingarten wrote, “Public schools are laboratories of civil society and, at their best, embody the multifaith, multiracial coexistence that is our nation’s best future … Fascists fear teachers because education is essential to democracy.” Public education needs to be strengthened, not weakened. Education is the life blood of democracy. Weingarten observed, “Having a different opinion from someone else doesn’t make you evil, it makes you an American.” Perhaps the slogan posted in that restaurant might be trying to say, “Education is as important as a bike is to a cyclist.”
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com.