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 A MOST ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How Many Are Truly Educable?
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“Essential questions” are much in vogue in teaching. They are intended to guide instruction andhelp students discover the big ideas that constitute the core of a topic of study. But suppose weapply this methodology to education itself. What is the most essential question we can ask aboutit? How about this? How many people are truly educable?
Reason and Understanding
What’s the difference between being “educable” and “trainable?” Let’s stipulate that for a personto be “educable” they must be “capable of being improved in ways that depend on reason andunderstanding.”
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A trainable person, in contrast, is incapable of being improved in these ways.
Education as Panacea
It must be widely supposed that most people are educable, for Americans have long had apeculiar faith in the power of education. Indeed, it is frequently regarded as the answer for mosthuman difficulties. Consequently our schools are expected to resolve a daunting array of problems such as the cultural integration of immigrants, difficulties with national competitiveness,the elimination of racial injustice, the control of sexually transmitted diseases, and so forth.
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Indeed, the list of problems thought to be susceptible to educational solution seems almostinexhaustible.
Lack of Education or Educability?
Certainly a great deal of human misery could be prevented if people could be taught to think moredeeply and effectively. But is the common failure to do so a consequence of a lack of educationas many suppose? Perhaps, just perhaps, the real culprit is a widespread lack of capacity and/or inclination for education. After all, in order for education to be a cure, much less a cure-all, themajority of humans must be capable of sufficient reason and understanding to be improved bythat means; plus they also must willing. Suppose this is not the case? Perhaps a great manyhumans, possibly even most humans, are not truly educable in any deep and abiding sense,?Is such speculation too pessimistic? Perhaps it is; but consider the long-standing popularity of P.T. Barnum’s observation that “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Ponder also the durability of 
1
John Hyman, "Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder?”
Think 
, Spring, 2002.
2
See Henry J. Perkinson, The Imperfect Panacea: American Faith in Education, 1995, FourthEdition, New York, McGraw Hill1
 
H.L. Mencken’s dictum that “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of theAmerican people.” Perhaps these and many similar observations remain current because theyare deeply rooted in reality.
Too Dumb, Too Scared, Or What?
This line of reasoning sounds heretical to those accustomed to the obligatory, optimism thatengulphs schooling. Nevertheless, there is evidence to support such a view. Consider how manyhumans willingly trot off to slaughter every time someone idecides to gives a war. And instead of learning from repeated previous slaughters, we humans continue to enthusiastically divideourselves into pseudo-species, carefully nurture distrust and hatred toward one another, andthen, sooner or later, join in still another horrific mutual slaughter that is utterly foreign to any“lesser species.”For instance, fully fifteen million people were killed and twenty two million wounded in World War I.
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Yet just nineteen years later 
homo sapiens
(man the thinker?) got himself into a far worseslaughter — WW II, This ghastly tribute to human folly cost 60 million people their lives andloosed hellish suffering on many more.
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 Does any of this sound like the behavior of a species thatis educable, i.e. “capable of being improved in ways that depend on reason and understanding?”On the other hand, how much power did the average person have to change the course of theseevents? And they only knew what they were told. Perhaps it is true, as radicals have longmaintained, that wars are creations of the rich and powerful and serve only their purposes whilethe rest are forced to “serve.”Still
, home sapiens
displays a peculiar reluctance, or inability, to employ reason andunderstanding even when the truth is readily apparent. The Harris Poll reported, for instance, thatdespite repeated official reports that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, thebelief that Iraq possessed such weapons increased substantially after the war was over and theevidence in.
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 That’s right, despite massive and widely publicized evidence to the contrary, the number of Americans who thought that Iraq possessed such weapons prior to Operation “EnduringFreedom” actually went up as evidence to the contrary became widely known. As a matter of fact,in February of 2005 only 36% thought Iraq was so armed; but in July of 2006 fully 50% believed
3
World War Casualties, Wikipedia,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
4
Keith Dickson, World War II for Dummies, For Dummies, New York, 2001.
5
The Harris Poll #57, July 21, 2006.2
 
they were. Does that sound like a conviction that grew out of widespread capacity for reason andunderstanding?To be fair, those who changed their mind about those weapons of mass destruction might havedone so out of an unconscious desire to rationalize their own original enthusiasm for the war and/or to justify the tremendous costs it has generated. In short, what seems to be evidence of public credulity might just be people being human, all to human. But that still leaves us wonderingwhy the species is so very eager to cling to the mindless tribalism, hatred and the organizedmurder we call warfare? Is that evidence of Homo sapiens' educability?And what about our destruction of the very environment that sustains us? With happy oblivion weare rapidly destroying the basis of our species very existence. In this case, it might turn out thathomo sapiens, “man the thinker,” will ultimately prove too dumb to live.On a less global scale one can also profitably consider the success of political campaignstrategies that are based on the principle that many people are fools. In Pennsylvania, for example Senator Rick Santorum cut down challenger Bob Casey’s very substantial lead bymeans of a $3.5 million TV ad blitz that repeatedly referred to Casey as “Bobby” in order to makehim seem juvenile and inconsequential. Casey countered with an equally unsophisticated attackad. The plain truth of the matter is that ads like this work and work well. Does that suggest thereis a great deal of deep thought going on out there?Of course, political propagandists know how to play on emotions such as fear of the unknown, thealien and the complex. Moreover, the simplicity they offer is beguilingly attractive to a public thathas to reach conclusions based on imperfect information and deliberate disinformation. Maybethat, rather than widespread intellectual ineffectiveness, is why the general public remains soexploitable and so oblivious to many urgently important issues. Let’s hope so.
The Media
Evidence of a widespread ineducability is not confined to the repetitive insanity of war, assaultson the environment, or crass political chicanery. Consider, the quality of the media. Morespecifically, let’s consider infomercials or “paid programming.”Multiplied millions of dollars are spent buying TV time to peddle bogus nostrums, physical or spiritual, and many, many more millions are realized in consequence. Psychic hotlines generatefortunes for their bogus operators even though they have absolutely nothing but hot air to sell.Omega 3 fish oil is successfully huckstered as a cure for an impossible range of maladies andtens of thousands have been convinced that purging their bowels will have the same beneficialeffects on their body that emptying a full sweeper bag can effect for s clogged up Electrolux.3
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