Growing up in the inner-city Cleveland school district, in the midst of desegregation (or "bussing," as white adults liked to call it), I vividly remember lessons about the importance of math and science. It was a point of patriotism that we, Americans, had been on the forefront of technology, even in the 70's as many industries began to change. We'd go to our local NASA museum, see the moon rock, or the health museum to see how medicine was allowing us to live longer. (I also remember a computer that estimated your longevity, my first real chance to contemplate death, at age 8.) I found it to be inspiring and exciting. And while I didn't understand geopolitical and economic issues at the time, it seemed like a good thing that we were "better" at this stuff than the Soviets. For those who don't remember, the Soviet Union was the communist government that included Russia and surrounding countries. Ugh, that I feel like I need to qualify that plays into my eventual point.
These days, the US is not leading so much. According to a list of PISA/OECD rankings on Wikipedia, from 2022, we rank 34th in math, 16th in science and 9th in reading education. There are only 193 countries in the world. Yikes. Because of COVID, they don't have China listed, but they were 6th in math an 10th in science in 2015. Most of Asia and Europe outrank us, and Singapore is #1 in all three categories. Why does this matter? Because much of American economic identity is rooted in being first at things, most at things, inventing things. We have to educate leaders and the general population to have those achievements. I don't think economic nationalism makes sense, because you can't reverse globalism, but to be "winning," you can't be behind your next biggest economies like China.
This isn't a problem with teachers, I don't think. They're overworked, underpaid, and most of those that I get to know are aspirationally trying to level us all up. But college is often too expensive, many districts are underfunded and outcomes are tied largely to the socioeconomic status of the people near schools. I think those are solvable problems, but there's a bigger issue at the moment.
At some point, and definitely during the pandemic, a loud portion of the population started to question the very science that was going to pull us out of the pandemic. The experts got some things wrong early on, reasonably so given the speed at which it all happened, but applied the scientific method and critical thinking to course correct. Then it got political. Republicans died more from COVID than Democrats by 15%. Since then, some areas are seeing a resurgence in disease because of vaccine skepticism. Conventional, non-fad dietary advice is being tossed out the window in favor of incorrect things people on the Internet say. People insist that they can "do their own research," but they don't understand that research isn't parroting things they find online. Worse yet, and I think this is the thing to fight, is that knowing things and being educated is somehow a sort of elitism. The people we championed in those museums I went to as a kid are, inexplicably, now the bad guys.
We have to reverse this. Being educated and engaging in critical thinking has to be made cool again. There is this swelling sense that we must be the best "again," but I can say with certainty that we can't be the best if we're not willing to do the work. The work is turning out scholars, researchers, doctors, engineers, and yes, even lawyers. Expertise is not a phantom quality produced by conspiracy theories, it's made real by education and commitment to critical thinking. Is that really something that should be controversial?
I saw Bill Nye a few years ago, and he leaned hard into the need for critical thinking. He explained what it is and how to practice it. He has a Masterclass about it. When presented with evidence, we need to potentially modify our world view, even if it is uncomfortable. And that's the weirdest part of it... Science should not be uncomfortable. We do have a shared reality, and feelings will not make reality less real. If the evidence of something comes from a person who has spent their entire life studying, trust their research, because your Google search does not best their decades of experience and knowledge. If they present evidence, it likely can be independently verified.
Education and expertise is important. If we don't embrace that, we will be left behind by the rest of the world. We're already slipping.
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