No Ordinary Education

Graduating seniors of Newtown High School’s Class of 2011 filed across the stage at the O’Neill Center at Western Connecticut State University Wednesday night to pick up diplomas on the way to the rest of their lives. Diplomas, like validated tickets, are essential documents for most of the career paths that fan out from the high school on Berkshire Road. Most of the 420 graduates will be picking up another diploma in two or four years, and perhaps one or two more after that. Others will find opportunities in the military and apprenticeships. The process reflects our culture’s bet that knowledge, skill, and talent make a difference in this world — a calculation borne out by statistics and studies showing that levels of education have a direct correlation to employment opportunities and wages. Even when money is not the measure, education appears to tilt the scale toward a better life. The American Cancer Society reported just this month that among men, the least educated died of cancer at a rate two-and-a-half times greater than men with college degrees, a disparity that has increased 25 percent from 20 years ago. It turns out that ignorance, especially about good nutrition and the hazards of drinking and smoking, can kill you.

Statistics aside, the $68 million Newtown voters approved this spring for education in 2011-12 looks like a solid investment, not in spite of, but especially because of the uncertainty that is shaping the world today’s students will inherit. Our country, long known for its genius and innovation, will need every ounce of that genius and innovation to negotiate the shifting economic and political landscapes of this new century. Unfortunately, we still struggle with a disconcerting streak of anti-intellectualism in our culture, where “nerds,” “eggheads,” and “geeks” are the butt of jokes, where an appalling ignorance of our own history and geography is excused with a snicker (Jay Leno: What countries border the United States? Man on the Street: Um, Australia and Hawaii?), and politicians commonly try to insult their opponents by calling them “elite.” For a country so proud of its exceptionalism, we sometimes seem to have a distinct preference for the ordinary.

The education Newtown still continues to afford its youth is anything but ordinary. As we have seen in awards ceremonies across the district in recent days, Newtown students have distinguished themselves — and by extension, their teachers — in myriad ways. As always, we wish the NHS graduates well, but better than any wishes we may tender is the fact that we have educated them well. In a world full of distortions in the cause of marketing, in the cause of politics, in the cause of fear and manipulation, wishing for the best is not enough. We need people, now more than ever, who are educated, knowledgeable, elite in their fields, and truly exceptional.