by AFT President Sandra Feldman
March, 2002

Democracy requires
the free flow
of ideas.

What do teachers and education have to offer in a war with the shadowy, well-funded network of terrorists who attack our country and its values? The answer: plenty. Education goes right to the heart of this conflict, which is a battle of ideas about values: Who governs? By what right do they claim power? Are there free elections? Are free speech, a free press, independent trade unions, and free enterprise protected? Are people free to worship--or not--as they wish? Do women and other groups enjoy basic human rights?

Most Americans with a high school diploma have been exposed to the revolutionary idea on which our country is founded: that a democratic government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. They learn that our Constitution and Bill of Rights set out a blueprint for a free society grounded in the rule of law. Although our schools could--and should--do more, each year, young people, inspired by democratic ideals they learn in a classroom, become active in the political and civic life of their communities. And this happens in most democratic nations.

The greatest threats

History teaches us that the greatest threats to freedom and security arise from anti-democratic regimes and totalitarian ideologies. We know that students who go to school under repressive regimes are not exposed to democratic ideas, in either their textbooks or classroom discussions.

The events of the last few months make painfully clear that we cannot take the survival or spread of democracy for granted. The central drama of modern history continues to be the struggle to establish, preserve, and extend democratic values--at home and abroad. And as the inhumanity of terrorist acts demonstrates, these values do not come naturally. Devotion to human dignity and freedom, to equal rights, to social and economic justice, to the rule of law, to civility and truth, to tolerance of diversity, to mutual assistance, to personal and civic responsibility, to self-restraint and self-respect--must be taught and learned and practiced.

This month, in Afghanistan, students are officially returning to school and university. They’ll return to buildings with no windows, no desks, no heat, no supplies--nothing. Yet the beginning of school is the end of a nightmare, especially for the girls. There is a heartbreaking hunger for learning in Afghanistan, where teachers forbidden to teach risked their lives to establish secret schools, including for girls who were specifically denied an education by Taliban edict. Most Afghani girls lost five years--irreplaceable learning years in the life of a child. When the edict was lifted and the interim government announced its in- tention to re-start education for boys and girls, students flocked by the thousands to makeshift schools. The government expects to have over a million children back in school this year, and UNICEF, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other international agencies are working hard to rebuild the country’s shattered educational infrastructure, from repairing broken windows to supplying desks, chairs, pencils, and books.

The tragic stories aren’t limited to Afghanistan, and girls weren’t the only victims. For example, many parents in Pakistan sent their boys to religious schools because much of the public education system there is also in a state of disarray. Instead of learning the "three R’s", these young people too often were educated to become Osama Bin Laden’s foot soldiers. Now their families are grieving. The Pakistani government has vowed to rejuvenate public schools. We must help them.

Rebuild education

The United States should support programs that promote the dissemination of books, tapes, pamphlets, and model curricula, in schools and libraries and over the Internet, as an essential element of our defense spending. We and our allies should help the international agencies working to assist in the rebuilding of destroyed school buildings and furnish them with basic learning tools. We should support teachers and local efforts in education reform that include democratic ideas and subjects such as science, math, and economics that prepare children for life in a modern society. In Afghanistan, our assistance must be conditioned on the return of women and girls to the classroom, as teachers and as students, from primary school to university, as the interim government has promised.

There are courageous people, many of them teachers, working in every sort of repressive situation around the world to promote and sustain democratic ideas. Where there are openings to help schools and promote the free flow of ideas, the United States and its partners--who know first hand the value of the free exchange of ideas in teaching and learning--must act. It is a monumental task, and an essential one, if we hope to keep the world safe for democracy.