Education

Out of these early universities was born the concept of liberal arts — grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy — studies which are “liberal” not because they are easy or unserious, but because they are suitable for those who are free (liberalis), as opposed to slaves or animals. In the era before SME’s (subject matter experts), these are the subjects thought to be essential preparation for becoming a good, well-informed citizen who is an effective participant in public life.

We could all look back and observe that March 2020 marked the beginning of the end of the great Progressive experiment in public education. Something else is emerging now. This is not a story that any responsible person would have scripted but the end result, and despite all the carnage along the way, might be a better overall system for the next generation of students, parents, and teachers. 

People often ask me why I still care about school closures and other covid restrictions that harmed a generation of children. “Schools are open now,” they say. “It’s enough already.” No. It’s not. The impact to this generation of children continues. And so do many of the restrictions impacting young people. 

Academia was full of eccentric professors with various crazy ideas and habits (some brilliant), naïve students, and pompous administrators; but they all adhered to the same standard of knowledge. This led not just to scientific discovery and technological progress, but to every other kind of progress: economic, political, social, and ethical.

The deceptive description of the policy proposed in the GBD as a “let it rip” strategy was fueled by the purposeful – or perhaps recklessly ignorant – mischaracterization of the GBD by Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci. Prof. Bhattacharya calls not for letting the virus “rip,” but, instead, for Focused Protection. Focusing resources, attention, and care on those persons who are vulnerable while rejecting the utterly unprecedented practice of locking down whole societies is emphatically not a “let it rip” strategy.

Countless people from all walks of life have found themselves lost in a shared Kafkaesque dream since the dawn of the Pandemic Era nearly three years ago, yet, what makes accounts such as those contained here particularly jarring is that these students were not simply contending with a class of administrative automotons, as many have, but with well-trained, well-educated biologists – the kind of people one might have initially expected to put up the greatest resistance to illogical and scientifically unsound Covid policies. 

Mainstream media outlets will not even touch them because they go against the narrative that all of the governments’ measures were right and necessary to protect people from the dangers of Covid. That leads me to wonder, how can we enable opposing voices to be heard by a wider audience?