Los Altos High School: The Product of Christian Republicanism
Should anyone recall steps taken during the revolutionary era towards religious toleration, they might also remember the irony that came with it: the Christian Republic, the new goal. As Christianity and truly any structured religious denomination within its realm remained prominent, the people agreed that a society with ingrained religious values meant a society with strong moral standards.
And so formed the republic. So formed the swearing on the Bible to ensure no lies disrupted the due process in court. And so led the precedent set by presidents (all 45 Christian so far) to declare "So help me God!" during their inauguration. Yet, a very core part of maintaining a moral population, in the revolutionary Americans' viewpoint (including politicians), meant raising an educated (future) electorate. The next step: public school.
Now the irony that comes with this is twofold. Firstly, while this public school phenomenon would make America one of the most educated nations in the world, it would also result in a less Christian nation. As science has evolved, the concept of religion has been widely challenged in all its facets. Religion has also been removed from public school, making way for the constitutional freedom of religion/speech that falls under the First Amendment. In my eyes, that has allowed more room for religious tolerance in the country, especially compared to what was considered sufficiently tolerant back in the days of the birth of Christian Republicanism. For example, the Jews were not permitted political roles across colonies except for New York. They were considered to be "tolerated", but not necessarily equal. Today, that Christian Republican ideal of public school has effectively supported morality and education to great degrees by enabling everyone's ideas and voices to be heard. However, I cannot be sure whether this exact result would excite them.
The other part I have to question is whether public schools' current educational standards are outdated. Perhaps it must change to maintain a truly educated youth/future electorate, with new requirements such as experience. Schools have begun this, with some mandating community service hours for graduation, but Los Altos is not one of these schools. Experience in the real world is key to understanding others and making well-informed decisions, and as we turn 18 and are legally able to vote as soon as we leave high school, this experience needs to come before graduation. Our current education system is academically sufficient, however, a truly educated electorate would not vote a maniac into the presidency. We as a nation must ensure that the future electorate, currently in school, is not taught with the same education standards of our parents and of the generation that elected incorrectly.
Regardless— as a non-Christian, as a not-religious-person actually, as an atheist: I applaud Christian Republicanism, not for its problematic leftovers of sometimes-church-not-separate-from-state things (like swearing on a Bible), but for the chance to learn for free here at Los Altos. I know I will ensure that I do not waste this gift, nor will I return it (not just because I never got a receipt).
The other part I have to question is whether public schools' current educational standards are outdated. Perhaps it must change to maintain a truly educated youth/future electorate, with new requirements such as experience. Schools have begun this, with some mandating community service hours for graduation, but Los Altos is not one of these schools. Experience in the real world is key to understanding others and making well-informed decisions, and as we turn 18 and are legally able to vote as soon as we leave high school, this experience needs to come before graduation. Our current education system is academically sufficient, however, a truly educated electorate would not vote a maniac into the presidency. We as a nation must ensure that the future electorate, currently in school, is not taught with the same education standards of our parents and of the generation that elected incorrectly.
Regardless— as a non-Christian, as a not-religious-person actually, as an atheist: I applaud Christian Republicanism, not for its problematic leftovers of sometimes-church-not-separate-from-state things (like swearing on a Bible), but for the chance to learn for free here at Los Altos. I know I will ensure that I do not waste this gift, nor will I return it (not just because I never got a receipt).
I agree that we need to be more educated in school about politics so that we don't elect people who aren't qualified, such as, in my opinion, our current president. I also think that the right to vote should come before we are eighteen. Today lots of young people know a lot about politics and are eager to participate. Allowing us to vote younger could also motivate more teens to educate themselves in political affairs resulting in a more politically aware population, which would be good.
ReplyDeleteI respectfully disagree with your insinuation that the current president is indicative of the problems with public education. I believe that this sentiment disregards the many, many other factors which could account for the results of the 2016 election.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I would like to think that most of the people who are eligible to vote for president have had this so-called "experience in the real world." From your statement "this experience needs to come before graduation," I will assume that this real-world experience is a superset of the time spent after high school graduation. If we assume 5 years of real-world experience to be sufficient for one to be considered experienced enough in the real world (where the "enough" part seems to be what you desire as a heuristic for voting), then it's quite clear that the number of people ages 23 and up is greater than the number of people ages between 18 and 22. If evidence is still required to substantiate this seemingly obvious claim, then I provide the 2016 census at the bottom of this post, which you may view to confirm that I am not just spouting nonsense.
tl;dr: a pretty overwhelming majority of people eligible to vote have "experience in the real world" no matter how you define it.
Second, I would like to remark that people's decisions are subconsciously affected by their environment, even if such a decision is completely anonymous. For example, if someone lives in an environment where the seemingly unanimous opinion is that X is the better candidate, then that person may vote for X because his peers agree, or he may vote for Y because he wants to be cool and contrarian for some reason. Although the voting system may be designed to be completely anonymous, I don't think that you can deny that people's decisions are still influenced by those around them. I think that this is even more prevalent with the people who lack "experience in the real world." If we use my definition of "experience in the real world" which I stated above, then at this point it is commonly accepted knowledge that those who lack real-world experience also do not have fully developed brains. Furthermore, these inexperienced people are also likely still dependent on their parents to an extent, so they would be more influenced by their parents than so-called experienced people. Therefore, not only is peer pressure a factor in voting decisions, but parental influence could also play a role. I would like to reiterate that no matter how well-educated people are, environment can still be an influence.
Finally, I'd like to remark that in your second to last paragraph, there seems to be an implication that Los Altos in particular lacks appropriate experience in the real world, and schools like Los Altos are the cause for the current president. However, it also happens that the seemingly unanimous sentiment in Los Altos is that Trump is a maniac. In fact, in California, almost twice as many people voted for Clinton than Trump. Therefore, I am the opposite of convinced that the lack of experience in the real world resulting from our education system has resulted in Trump's presidency. Of course, you may say that there are many other reasons for the large majority of people pro-Clinton in California (the same most likely applying for LAHS), but the same argument would apply that there are many other reasons outside of the education system why Trump was voted in.
I couldn't find how to edit comments, so here is the census mentioned:
Deletehttps://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/age-and-sex/2016-age-sex-composition.html
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI think you mentioned a great point when you said that our country elected our current so-called president because of the "outdate educational system." I definitely agree with you that the education we receive has an impact on who we see fit to be our president. However, I don't think our real world experiences attribute to our political opinions. I think through education, people are well informed of the current situation in the United States and they will be able to decide on their political opinions.
I agree that free public education has greatly increased religious toleration in the United States. I also really liked your point regarding the importance of real-world experience, but I believe that encouraging students to get a job/internship would be a better alternative than mandatory community service. Finally, I respectfully disagree with your statement that the president was elected "incorrectly", since he won the Electoral College. The United States elects its president through the Electoral College, which consists of 538 electors. The number of electors granted to a state is determined by adding the number of representatives and senators the state has in Congress. This system is relatively good at representing the entire country's population.
ReplyDelete