Let America Be America Again—Langston Hughes
The national discourse about higher education is contributing to a misperception about the ends of education in America.
For example, in late September of 2006, the U.S. Department of Education announced its intent to bring about “long overdue reform” to American higher education. Its foremost concern is that the U.S. may become less competitive in the global economy because of declining college completion rates in the U.S. in contrast to rising college completion rates of other countries.
A more reflective discourse would recognize that American education, in retrospect, has been the repository of our belief in ourselves, who we are as a people, and our sense of high purpose, namely, to be a humane beacon of light to other aspiring peoples.
This perspective is quaint to many Americans because it has been overshadowed by a global market economy worldview, which is characterized by individual autonomy, intense competitiveness, personal wealth accumulation, and the necessity for structural adjustments that bring about social and economic dislocations.
A more reflective discourse would also recognize that the 21st century has had an extraordinarily rough start that may have everything to do with this global market economy worldview.
At the center of this turmoil, some would say that we have all lost trust in each other. Neil Postman may have the telling clue to why this lack of trust has evolved. He draws attention to the disappearance of a shared narrative that is the foundation of all public trust. All such narratives, according to Postman,
“…tell of origins and envision a future, a story that constructs ideals, prescribes rules of conduct, provides a source of authority, and, above all, gives a sense of continuity and purpose…one that has sufficient credibility, complexity, and symbolic power to enable one to organize one’s life around it…one that provides people with a sense of personal identity, a sense of community life…Our genius lies in our capacity to make meaning through the creation of narratives that give point to our labors, exalt our history, elucidate the present, and give direction to our future.”
Didn’t America once have a shared narrative that matched Neil Postman’s profile?—-with origins, a vision, ideals and rules of conduct?—The Declaration of Independence, throwing off oppression, holding truths to be self-evident, a beacon of light, The American Dream, The Constitution, and public trust?
but the market must be kept in its place.”
It is a cautionary insight about “the importance of balancing the values of the market with the values of the commons.”
Are the disruptive market economy forces that reached their zenith in the 1920s back with us again, but more virulent?
Is the vision of the global market economy worldview really a shared narrative? One that “above all, gives a sense of continuity and purpose…one that has sufficient credibility, complexity, and symbolic power to enable one to organize one’s life around it…one that provides people with a sense of personal identity, a sense of community life?”
Or does it set us against one another and diminish the public trust? Market resistance to confronting global warming is a chilling example.
The profound strength of America comes from its submerged, but firmly imbedded ideals about the values of the commons.
And these submerged, but deeply imbedded American ideals are the source of energy for restriking the balance between the values of the market and the values of the commons.
Now, we’ve come full circle to the ends of education.
The ends of education have much to do with developing student perspective, namely “the measured and objective assessment of situations, giving all elements their comparative importance.” American higher education has the capacity to develop student perspective by newly designed courses that integrate the disciplines of philosophy, literature, history, political science, sociology, psychology, creative expression and the like. Developing student perspective is key to restriking the balance.
America’s task in the early 21st century is to clearly state that the highest end of American education is the same as it has always been: to be the repository of American ideals that provide hope, purpose and resolve to us and to the rest of the world that we can all work together for a better future. A further end of American education is to strive to fully develop the intellectual, ethical and practical capacity of our next generations. And, along with developing student perspective, an end of education is to prepare students for life-pursuits in the global economy.
The initiative to undertake the essential work of restriking the balance will come not from within American education nor from other American institutions. Who will step forward? A respected voice from the past provides insight.
“Who, then, shall conduct education so that humanity may improve?
We must depend upon the efforts of enlightened men and women in their private capacity. All culture begins with private persons and spreads outward from them.
Simply through the efforts of persons of enlarged inclinations, who are capable of grasping the ideal of a future better condition, is the gradual approximation of human nature to its end possible…..
In addition, we have an explicit fear of the hampering influence of a state-conducted and state-regulated education upon the attainment of these ideas.”
_____ John Dewey 1916
In all likelihood, John Dewey was right. How would it be possible for existing institutions in higher education and their members to bring about meaningful change that would dramatically alter their way of life? Instead, it will be a small group of enlightened men and women in their private capacity, persons of enlarged inclinations, who are capable of grasping the ideal of a future better condition, who will be the ones to take action.
The action?
An easy step would be for this group to call for presentations by individuals who are currently engaged in meaningful “doings” that can make a significant difference in higher education. This would be a great service because the creation of a well-publicized, permanent forum for innovations would break down mainstream resistance that has suppressed needed advances.
A crucial action by the group would be to restructure liberal education to create an efficient and relevant set of required core courses designed specifically to develop student perspective. This would be a great service to higher education and to our next generations. Developing student perspective in this manner is a key step to restriking the balance.
Most important, the group would develop a shared narrative we all can rely on—–a narrative to galvanize us to decisively restrike the balance between the values of the market and the values of the commons.
Then, the group would insure that the new shared narrative that reflects the values of the commons in the 21st century would be repositioned in American education, which is its natural repository, to be disseminated throughout our society and the world as it used to be.
Such an undertaking by a small group of enlightened men and women in their private capacity, persons of enlarged inclinations, who are capable of grasping the ideal of a future better condition would set in motion real “doings” focused on our most fundamental problems and culminating in action with clarity and resolve.
They could reach out to an admiring and energized public to shape opinion in support of the best interests of higher education, including a powerful, public-backed dialogue with the U.S. Department of Education. This group’s goals, once again, are to:
1. Break down the mainstream resistance to educational innovation.
2. Initiate the restructuring of liberal education to become the required core courses designed to develop student perspective.
3. Resuscitate, transform and re-introduce the shared narrative to restrike the balance between market and commons values.
4. Restore American education’s role as the repository of the shared narrative to be disseminated throughout our society.
In the time of the Great Depression, Langston Hughes, the African-American poet, was among those who would not give up on the shattered American narrative, although he had sufficient reason. He wrote:
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(America never was America to me.)
Oh, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)…………………………..
………………………………..
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—–
America will be!
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—–
All, all the stretch of these great green states—–
And make America again!