In retrospect, with the knowledge the America really is a free society with a separation between churches and state, it is my personal opinion that the educators should have integrated competing cultures and religions into the education. In doing so, there would be no competition or conflict and there would be harmony between cultures in society, free for our children and young adults to learn about the cultures that make up the United States. Instead, our educational system was founded on prejudice and racist beliefs, which lead to unequal funding and overwhelming segregation in the school system.
The threat of different cultures and races, namely African Americans, Native Americans, Irish Catholics, Germans to name a few, should have been embraced and incorporated into the fabric of America’s democracy. The first amendment reads that we must “respect an establishment of religion”. By the government trying to defeat these aspects of America, they created hate in a society that was supposed to be founded on the equality of our citizens.
The only way to truly change the Protestant foundation of the educational system is through reform and a transfer of power over decisions. Their needs to be a larger population in charge of the educational system so that Groupthink does not get in the way of their making good decision-making. All efforts to help other cultures failed and we saw that African American slaves attempted to educate themselves. This demonstrates the human need for learning and scholastic development, even when such an act is punishable by U.S. law.
Even though our school system was successful in many areas, out forefathers could have gone about this dilemma with much more ease if we have decided to educate through literacy purposes instead of taking Native American’s land. At the core, we need to want to educate our children indiscriminately and this will result in economic and educational success.
