The debate goes on over and over on how we should educate our children with "new systems" constantly being applied.

Most of them have failed!

Our current public school systems in the United States over all is woefully under-performing when you check the results as per the level of intelligence of your average so-called educated citizen.

Now what is education anyway? Why is it failing?

We continuously argue over the reasons for this and many say it's because of money or lack of….   although this is a factor I don't believe it is the cause of the failure.

Evidence show some of the greatest minds the world has to offer came from poor backgrounds or from areas of great poverty. How many times have we witnessed superior results from entire groups of students even when lack of funding was a major issue, for instance - the story about the students in the movie Stand and Deliver.

The problem of a broken educational system is nothing new, for many decades our public schools have been making the same claims year after year. We continue to try to experiment with new ways to teach so we can supposedly keep up with changing times.

I can remember, way back in the70's, I was placed in one of these experimental classes in my third grade year. A completely new way to educate us, structured and design by the latest most up to date psychologist. Without going into detail of how well this worked out, the class only lasted a few years before they decided most of the students ended up falling behind compared to the "old" system of learning. This was also the time when they had the wonderful concept of "NEW MATH" for those of us who can remember that. As we can see that went over well too.

Our children are not lab rats to test new products on - we need to stop treating them this way when it comes to education!

The absolute most important function of any society is the need for superior education. History has shown us all of the strongest civilizations placed education in the highest level of reverence.

This brings me back to the question I posed earlier. What is education?

The word itself is derived from the Latin root educe which mean - To Draw From Within or To Bring Fourth. What this mean is literally to draw from within ourselves.

I believe Education has lost that meaning. We have based learning on indoctrinating the current ideology and facts with an over emphasis on testing and how many facts of knowledge we can cram into our heads long enough to put it down on a sheet of paper so we can completely fill in the correct circle with a #2 pencil!

What we should be doing is getting back to the basics and start teaching our children from the beginning How To Learn. We need to base education less on the accumulation of knowledge and promote the acquisition of wisdom.