A Duluth educator offered a clear, calm voice this week amid all the well-stoked hysteria over President Obama addressing the nation’s schoolchildren this week.
Dr. John Haire, head of Duluth’s Harbor City International School, explained why his school was making time for students to watch the address. Here’s an excerpt:
To equivocate in our decision to show the speech is to send our students the message that, at best, our President is either irrelevant in their lives or, at worst, that our President does not have their best interest at heart. Either position carries significant risks to the confidence we have in our way of governing ourselves.As the Executive Director of Harbor City International School, I believe the bedrock of our public educational system is to provide an informed and knowledgeable citizenry who have the ability to reason. The express purpose of a knowledgeable citizenry is to apply reason to the kaleidoscope of images, facts, propaganda, marketing, passions, and disparate points of view to arrive at our individual and collective understanding of what is good for us as a nation. In fact, without such abilities, we are defenseless against demagogues or tyrants who would prefer that we make all of our decisions based on our emotions, especially fear.
Read the full post here and rejoice that at least one school leader in America remembers why education is so important in a representative democracy.
