A sign promoting the March 4 National Day of Action to Defend Education contained two statements: Education is a Human Right; and Resist, Mobilize & Transform. The first is false—education is not a human right. We are not born with it, we or our parents earn it! The second, a trio of commands, is contrary to all things educational. Students, teachers, and administrators are not in school to resist. They are there to accept rules from their higher authorities.
Who and what must mobilize? What are they mobilizing to attack? Education is not militant. Transform—what kind of magic are they proposing? Faculty, staff, and students don’t perform magic; they teach and learn.
All Americans “defend education.” The organizers have a winner there, but they distort the noble cause with a confrontational mob.
This article appears in Mar 11-18, 2010.