One of my favorite quotes is attributed to Derek Bok, a lawyer and former Harvard University president who boldly claimed, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
Bok’s most obvious point is that despite the hard hit education puts on our ever-shrinking wallets, taking our bets with ignorance is a pricier gamble.
While I have always found this argument compelling, I have begun to question whether it is accurate.
Is education truly ending ignorance in our society, or are we educated on a more superficial level, skimming over international issues and concentrating on ourselves?
Are we paying attention to the countless injustices, the violations of human rights, and the people relegated to the fringes of society around the world?
Or are we focusing only on that which relates directly to our country and culture?
I feel that we neglect to fully address the difficult and perhaps most important parts of our education as global citizens.
I believe that while high schools nationwide excel in producing smart, driven young students with bright-eyed ambition, we fail to educate our students about the international issues and current events that shape us on a national level.
After graduating from the Atlanta International School, I left Georgia for Denison University in central Ohio, where I was thrust into an environment that appeared to be entirely unconcerned with the same international affairs that I was.
While the university took great pride in its promotion of the value of diversity and its decently large percentage of international students, the majority of the students themselves were relatively apathetic in regards to the international events, policies and systems that I felt so strongly about.
At first blush, I questioned whether or not I had made the right college choice.
Yet with time, I realized it was not my fellow students, my university or professors that I could blame for the collective disinterest in anything beyond the United States.
We have countless courses of study available that relate to international issues of power, privilege and social justice.
We have culture clubs, days of service and guest lectures on international development and globalization.
The problem did not lie with the people surrounding me, but with a system that had failed to instill in them the values of an international education.
It is my belief that students must be introduced to concepts larger than themselves and their communities from an early age.
High schools should focus on incorporating global issues and awareness of international events into their curriculums in order to prepare students to actively engage in an increasingly global society.
Despite their privileged upbringings and expensive educations, some of my friends at college are blissfully unaware of the importance of a personal involvement with the international community.
This is unfortunate, but it is a situation that can easily be rectified.
If ignorance is truly to be ended by way of education, we must be educated properly.
We must look beyond ourselves to the world around us and see what we can do to help.
We must learn to appreciate the value of cultures, countries and continents far from our own.
I believe that Georgians have the ability to become leaders in a movement to push for international education.
Then, and only then, can education truly put an end to ignorance.
Maddie Jones-Mills, a native Atlantan, is a junior at Denison University, majoring in English and sociology/anthropology.
About the Author
