There was a time when my proclivity to simplify and reduce complex ideas and issues to a single term led me to describe our “schooling” in terms of “physical education” or, “phys ed.”  This is a remnant of an old philosophical argument that protested the entry of physical “education” into the halls of learning as equal to mental exercise and pure thought, reasoning and speculation.  At times, I groused, people solely valued their sports, gymnasia, stadia and places of recreation and entertainment.  Their interests were in champions of physicality rather than heroes of the classroom who were the best and brightest.

I was right and wrong in this assessment.  The vast majority of people, citizens of modern countries (hopefully equal in their right to express opinions and cast votes) would rather speculate on the outcome of battles between amateur (school teams) or professionals in tests of strength, endurance and for strategy in the clash of opposing competitors.  The quadrennial Olympics is a proof of this and was approved by the Ancient Greeks who knew that (while far down on the list of achievements) a sound body was the host of a sound mind.

If the effort to support one’s team resulted in riots following a game’s outcome (particularly in sports resembling opposing armies battling each other) were put instead into the study of and solving problems of hunger, homelessness, disease and improvement of education, it would then have meaning. Positive and long lasting solutions to these problems would be far more valuable than letting off steam in hatred of the champions of another country in the contest of a sport.

We expend huge sums on sports centers, parking and consuming popular fattening foods and drink. We ignore schools and scholars and have them languish under leaky roofs and gift them with antiquated texts.  We celebrate our heroes on the playing fields while ignoring cheating in schoolrooms.

We prefer to build “Charter” schools and hand out vouchers instead of supporting PUBLIC SCHOOLS that are open to everyone. Mediocre education is preferred over good, better and best education in schools for ALL.

I have concluded that we love our athletes more than we appreciate our scholars.  We have not listened to Thomas Jefferson who would build a school system for all children (except girls and slaves) and did this in order to find those best “geniuses” for whom he would provide free higher education. Instead, we have created a process that expends vast sums on physicality and mediocre education (even for the children of the wealthy) rather than supporting public education in order to discover those exemplary scholars who will save our world.