L&T Publisher Earl Watt

 

Stopping by some of the senior graduation parties this past weekend was a comforting reminder of the good that is happening in our community.

We can discuss how to make our education system better, but our young people who are completing the system as it stands have good character.

They work hard, perhaps too hard. Many are focused on contributing to their family, even if that means sacrificing some of their academic opportunity.

Some students who should be in class are working instead to support their family. While this is not the best decision for their own academic future, how can anyone condemn the choice to try to contribute financially to the household?

No one should be faulted for making the moral decision to help their family, and we have a good number of students who have made that call.

How can we say that is not a person of character?

To be clear, I don’t agree with that decision personally. I believe it is critical to obtain an education if a family will ever generationally reverse the shackles of poverty. And statistics are clear that the more education a student achieves, the higher the earning potential.

Education is the great equalizer. No matter the background, the economic challenges, the socioeconomic conditions, an education is a ladder that can eclipse any obstacle.

Shaking the hands of many of our graduates and attending several celebrations, I got to see the type of student we are creating.

They are humble, hard-working, respectful young adults. There is no hard and fast rule that applies to everyone, but the Liberal High School Class of 2026 has some real winners that I would bet will be leaders in whatever industry they choose.

Perhaps it would be easy to say that because of some of the academic challenges we see across the state and nation that those graduating today won’t live up to the generations of the past. Academic performance has been declining for decades.

That’s not the fault of the students. They are kids. They do whatever we ask them to do, and they don’t do whatever we don’t ask them to do.

They have had access to technology like no generation before in some ways, but not in others.

Humanity has made huge leaps throughout history that moved the dial in society.

One century ago there was no such thing as indoor air conditioning, commercial jet flights, frozen dinners, fast food restaurants, television sets, rotary phones much less cell phones, no internet, electricity was just reaching homes for the first time, bathrooms were still outside, microwave ovens didn’t become common household devices until the 1980s, an the list goes on.

Throughout all of these advancements and many more, education continued to focus on rote memory, problem solving and critical thinking development.

We were so quick to embrace the newest technological advancement in education that we lost focus on whether or not the new device was a way to enhance education or replace it. Why learn to do an equation, for example, when the phone will perform the task for you?

Is it knowledge to know how to have the phone perform the operation or to know how to perform the operation without the phone?

More importantly, when is the equation necessary, and how do I build equations to solve challenges, or is it knowledge to query AI and see if someone else has already solved the challenge?

It’s a different world, for sure, and how to prepare the next generation to navigate it is going to determine whether or not the next advancements will be one of intellectual independence or group think with no original input.

It’s not a question of character of our students or educators but an inward evaluation of what we expect from an education. It is my hope that we understand the technology before relying on it.