Another GRE Essay …

Whether or not students ought to conform to a singular, monolithic curriculum until they matriculate at college depends on a litany of factors, most prominent of which are the nature of the nation and the extent to which education is available to all. Education has been an important part of thinking about the nation ever since the seeds of political thought were sown in the utopic world of Kallipolis in Plato’s Republic, in the more achievable Magnesia in the Laws, and in Aristotle’s Politics, most famous for recognising man’s nature as the polis animal. Through the recommendations put forth by Plato in the Republic and Aristotle in the Politics, I seek to argue that a nation should require all of its students to study a common core curriculum that can be customised with different options to better suit the needs of the nation and of students.

In the foundational Greek texts of political philosophy, we find extensive support for some degree of common education. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates makes the argument for division of labour by positing that because different people have different natures, they are better suited to different occupations. Thus, the division of labour is intended to allow individuals to explore their nature fully and to actual their potential, because for Socrates the nature of man can only be actualised in a single field of competence. The education afforded to them must necessarily differ: the education for the city’s guardian class aims at different ends than the education of a craftsman. The philosopher-kings, who must learn what the form of the ‘good’ is, and then acquire practical wisdom through a decade and a half of what we can now recognise as an apprenticeship, combines the pursuit of the ‘good’ with the practical training to achieve it. The education afforded to all, then, is different. But there is something startlingly common that runs through these: everyone is told the ‘Phonecian tale’, the foundation of the polis. Similarly, in the Laws, where the city of Magnesia is more driven by the rule of unchanging law rather than individuals who pursue the good, while there are differences in education to permit everyone to recognise their essence and nature and then actualise their potential, this education is founded upon a common bedrock: inculcating obedience to the laws, both spiritual and temporal. An education in the laws is the education that everyone by necessity must receive if they are to be a part of Magnesia. In both Platonic utopias, we see some measure of commonality across what might appear to be immensely stratified castes, and to some degree a common education is what binds these ideal cities together. In the Politics, Aristotle advances a similar line of argument. Aristotle’s polis is inhabited by citizens who rule and are ruled in turn, and these citizens receive a common education. While Aristotle’s notion of citizenship is restrictive, leaving out woman, children, and economically dependent individuals, leisured individuals who have the time to rule and be ruled have a share in the commons of the polis. Part of the polis’ project is its continual propagation, for which education is necessary. Here, too, common education is what holds the citizen class today: it is a priveleged class shaped by education and inculcation of moral, intellectual, and practical virtue.

If, from the Greeks, we learn the importance of varying degrees of public education, we have much to learn from contemporary implementations of this. In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville writes in favour of the extensive system of public schooling in New England that ensured that democratic governance at the lowest levels up was readily provided with a stream of interested voters and officials. The importance of public education in the rise of the United States to the definitive world superpower cannot be underestimated. Yet, there was much diversity in public education, and remains to this date: students might learn a radically different form of history in Alabama compared to New Hampshire or California. Those who support this argue that because local public education reflected the needs of the community, it was able to teach students better, and idea that has received pushback from many academics, most prominently E.D. Hirsch, Jr., who frequently laments the loss of ‘cultural literacy’. Hirsch emphasises that it takes thousands of facts to read even a morning’s edition of a local newspaper, and today many students are simply not equipped with the ability to decipher the morning news. Hirsch was an ardent proponent of the Common Core, an attempt to provide a foundation for cultural literacy and proficiency in skills called upon in everyday life. Hirsch recognised the importance of a national curriculum for all with enough space for teachers and local communities to add lessons and subjects to ensure that local needs and requirements were being met in addition to the aforementioned common goals. Even if all the students who took Common Core classes did not intend to matriculate at college, this foundation would give them enough knowledge to be active citizens and functioning members of society. However, if common curriculums are not flexible and do not allow for space to cater to local needs and personal preferences, these projects are destined for failure.

In addition to the abovementioned goal of cultural literacy, thus, a common national curriculum provides valuable civic education. Especially in democratic nations, the importance of civic education cannot be overstated. By putting students through a common core, a nation can ensure that tomorrow’s citizens will have the necessary skills to navigate increasingly complex political environments. If national education is guaranteed, the onslaught of fake news can be dealt with to a greater degree; it will be harder to sow misinformation in a citizen body that knows not merely what to think but also how to think. A national curriculum further introduces a common thread through much of a nation, acting as a bonding glue, a bank of shared knowledge that individuals can call upon together. It is the mortar to a magnificent edifice of smaller bricks.