Dictionary.com defines enlightenment as "a philosophical movement of the 18th century, characterized by belief in the power of human reason and by innovations in political, religious, and educational doctrine."
During the enlightenment many intellectuals, including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, tried to reshape our society's values. Instead of holding to the religious ways of education, we as a society were pushed to being educated about the science of how and what things are. Not only did it change the way we were being educated but the enlightenment also changed who was being educated. It expanded the population of people receiving education from just the upper class children, to every child in the United States. At the time it appeared to be a good thing. Watching RSAnimate's 21st Century Enlightenment allowed me to see that this idea isn't working for everyone anymore.
We are taught from grade school that everyone is different. We learn about the many different cultures in our world. Every teacher that taught me reinforced this. So if we are all so different, if every single person is unique, why does our education system teach us the exact same way? All of the kids are put into class rooms organized by their age, without regarding their abilities to learn. They are all taught the same things. In another video by RSAnimate, he discusses a study that was done on children testing their ability to think divergently. It was shocking to me that when the people this study was performed on were in kindergarten there scores were much higher, and as they continued to be educated their ability to think this way decreased drastically. This just shows me that obviously something needs to change with our education system. There needs to be a new enlightenment, to once again reform the way we educate. RSAnimate's 21st Century Enlightenment says, "To live differently involves thinking differently." We as a society need to start opening up our eyes and minds to see that this isn't working for us.
Good synthesis of different sources.
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