Our Education Was So Deprived

I am an early baby boomer.  OK, more precisely, I am  one of the oldest baby boomers.  Born in 1946, I went to school in the Northeast US during the 1950's and 1960'.  I graduated from college in 1969--the infamous Class of '69.  The American education system of those decades had a number of blindspots and most of us boomers suffered from the lack of attention to a number of crucial social, economic, political and cultural biases.

American-centered.

In no particular order of importance, I wish I had been confronted during my education with a less ethno-centric understanding of the world.  It did not dawn on me until well after 1969 that US dominance in the 20^th century (and before it, British) was an aberrant blip in the course of history.  We boomers were not  prepared either for the 21^st century decline in Pax Americana, nor for the resurgence of a world-power in Asia in the 21^st century.

Racist.

Secondly, our schools did not prepare most of us (at least most of us White kids) for the powerful grasp of institutional racism in the US.  That the nation was founded by men who either personally benefitted from slavery, or at least facilitated the perpetuation of slavery for many decades  after the American Revolution was not a part of the core curriculum were encouraged to study. 

Misogynistic.

Furthermore, at no time during our education was it made clear to us that we were part of a misogynistic culture, I didn’t take a single course, or even find a single reading on the topic in any of my syllabi.  Now 50 years later, the extent of gender discrimination and harassment is inescapable.  Only now so clearly recognized, can we look to the possibility of true gender and racial equality.

Environmentalism.

Lastly, even though I was a social science major in college, my education was remiss in not teaching me of the well-founded science of climate change, already clearly identifying by 1969 its anthropocentric roots.  I got all the way though obtaining a Ph. D. without a single assignment on the topic.