jacoblund
A recent sermon I heard began with an amazing quotation from a speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered to junior high school students.
His words were: “Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.”
I interpreted those words to mean that King was telling us to not use as an excuse the realization that only a few of us will achieve greatness, as defined by our alleged meritocratic society. Rather, King recognized that each of us is already great in our unique way, and was exhorting us to discover our talents and then to do our very best to perfect them.
Sadly, those who have usurped education from the hands of educators, such as politicians and business leaders, are telling students that the purpose of education is to make them employable by meeting the needs of industry.
As a result, the only students who are to be celebrated are those who excel in science, technology, engineering and math, and who score well on the standardized tests that are marketed in order that profits can be made by the business interests that contribute to political campaigns and who see education as a $600 billion a year market.
By calling us to “Be the best of whatever (we) are,” I believe King would reject the model for education that is developing in our nation, and would be proclaiming that the purpose of education is to provide students with the opportunity to fall in love with learning, to open new horizons, and to find the special talents that define us as individuals who are called to contribute to a loving community.
Rather than pouring students into predetermined molds, education should provide the widest possible array of opportunities for discovery. That used to include the liberal arts.
Jim Palermo
Southampton
