“Flexibility in the application of values” is a frame of mind, a personal orientation that can facilitate reconciliation and peaceful co-existence among fellow human beings; it is a significant indicator of positive mental health. Rigid orientations, on the other hand, feature inflexibility, intolerance for differences in others, disregard for empirical evidence and impatience with ambiguity. Rigid orientations result in being out of touch with a rapidly-changing reality, often leading to decision making in the real world that defies logic.

“Our knowledge of the external world and our ability to represent the world as it is or as we would like it to be has grown enormously, but our ability to meet wisely the challenge of how to be human beings has not developed equally.” ( L. Kubie, M.D.)

With a handful of electronic devices connected to a virtual reality, upcoming generations are poised to take over for the adults. If we don’t provide the opportunities in schools to develop widespread and intelligent uses of flexible orientations that engage constructively the ever-changing conditions of life in this technological age, we are making a huge mistake.

Rigid orientations are rampant in today’s society. They frequently take root during the earlier years of experience in the school, connected inseparably with the home and community organizations. While nothing is more important than putting in place a system of education that will reduce the inflexibility that leads to conflict, there is deafening silence among members of our society about the possible connections that exist between our standardized educational practices and troublesome rigidities in our society.

Kubie stated that ” education without self-knowledge (self-understanding emphasis added) can never mean wisdom or maturity; self-knowledge in depth is a process which like education itself is never complete. It is a point on a continuous and never ending journey. Without self-knowledge we can have no adults, but only aging children who are armed with words, and paint and clay and atomic weapons, none of which they understand.”

“Self-knowledge is not all there is to wisdom and maturity; but it is an essential ingredient which makes maturity at least possible. Yet it is the one ingredient which is almost totally neglected. This lack is both an index and a cause of the immaturity of culture.”

The long-range consequences of rigid orientations among many politicians and their constituents are becoming more apparent every day. Undeniably, these people represent the products of our schools, in spite of heroic efforts by educators to make a difference. If we don’t act now to examine in depth the nature and role of education in developing maturity and wisdom we have little hope for improving the future. A democracy cannot survive without an educated public and there appears among decision makers and laymen a reluctance to examine the foundational premises upon which an effective general education resides.

According to the late Lawrence Kubie, M.D., a noted psychiatrist, our cultural institutions, including education, have failed in accomplishing three interrelated missions, namely: “to enable human nature itself to change; to enable each generation to transmit to the next whatever wisdom it has gained about living; to free the enormous untapped creative potential which is latent in varying degrees in the preconscious processes of everyone.”

To effectively deal with these failures, we must examine, internalize and utilize the widely available writings of many reputable scholars who have researched and understood what is known, and can be validated in our experiences, about productive human development and behavior, including how we learn, alone and in groups. We must ask ourselves, what aspects of our educational system are inconsistent with the findings of these researchers and what can be changed that will produce citizens equipped to deal constructively and responsibly with these three missions in this rapidly-changing world?

Returning to the obsolete routines of the past or turning over our vital educational interests to narrowly-defined business priorities are not acceptable alternatives. The best hope for positive change rests with new general educational practices and vastly different assessment and evaluation strategies that in time can promote a more flexible and insightful orientation. But, will the politicians, the public and the educational community accept this challenge?

Change is advocated by politicians who are seeking influence with others. Whether expressed in slogans such as taking our country back or making our country great again or offering change we can believe in, or actualized in outright war, change is the central theme. But, in light of the sacrosanct nature of society’s view of education, politicians routinely omit from their rhetoric the need for change relating to conventional educational practices that play a significant role in contributing to our failing cultural efforts.

Decision making about education in this country now rests in large measure in the hands of politicians and moneyed interests. If we cannot bring into the political rhetoric an in-depth discussion about education that promotes the flexibility required for reducing conflict, where do we turn?

We need to upgrade our political discourse to center on the understanding and implementation of sustainable systemic change in education, change that leads to wisdom and maturity. Please insist that our leaders, our educators and laymen alike, stop acting as if our current and past general educational practices in conventional schools are immune from consideration as a major influence on the development of inflexible orientations that foster ignorance and troublesome hostilities throughout our society and the world.

Robert L. Arnold is a professor emeritus of education from Willsboro.