A Truly 'Patriotic Education' Requires Critical Analysis Of Us History

Republicans are focusing their assaults on colleges, academics, and institutions of education as they continue to combat the teaching of "divisive ideologies."

Consider Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance of Ohio, who described a vicious loop in which the left "takes hundreds of billions of American tax money and sends it to colleges" that spread critical race theory's purported basic tenet: "America is an awful, racist society." "Those colleges then educate instructors who carry that indoctrination into our primary and secondary schools," Vance says.

Because critical race theory is considerably more sophisticated and has far less effect on the nation's decentralised K–12 curriculum than Vance claims, Americans might just dismiss the right's effort to exploit voters' concerns over their children's education. However, ignoring the charge means squandering an opportunity.

The need for instructors and students who are courageous — and patriotic — enough to look critically about the country's history has never been greater. The country is ill-prepared to face present and future difficulties without independent thinkers who care enough about the country's well-being to struggle with, rather than escape from, its complicated past. After all, a society cannot tackle issues that it refuses to accept.