"Knowledge is power," Sir Francis Bacon famously said. Although he may have had a more pragmatic, empirical approach in mind, Bacon's words bear repeating in our own time, and especially as the school year begins. Why does the importance of knowledge need stressing in schools? Aren't schools all about that anyway?
Recently, a writer for Education Week claimed that schools do not need to emphasize knowledge, since the really important things are the soft skills of collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity — the so-called 21st-century skills. All three are, of course, important. But these skills simply do not have much traction without knowing a great deal about a wide variety of things.
In autumn a young man's fancy (and a young woman's, too) turns to thoughts of school. Even the melancholy chirping of the crickets becomes a sad song of the ebb of summer. Flip-flops and summer tees, like Cinderella's glass slippers and silk gowns, are replaced by "appropriate" dress, and book bags bulge with pencils and notebooks (paper and electronic). If a girl loses her flip-flops now, there's no young man on the beach to search for the foot to fit. Those days have passed.
The approach of autumn ushers in anxiety in the faculty lounge, too, as debates rage over the best way to prepare the rising classes to fit into the complex world. Economic issues dominate the discussion. Once upon a time the emphasis was on preparation to learn how to think critically, how to ask the right questions. A "well-rounded" man or woman got that way through study of the liberal arts. Now the point of an education, though more expensive than ever, has little to do with critical thinking or an acquired appreciation of history, culture and government.
