supports Newlon’s position by pointing out: “The ability to make quick, intuitive decisions is based on creating and cultivating self-trust.”45 With the certainty yet to be decided, we’ll just have to think about it.
Finally, how do environmental factors or input from others necessarily diminish individual thought and action? All thinking individuals should engage input from others regarding other individuals and the environment. But those inputs – whether personal, cultural, or environmental – should be tested, if not challenged, by the thinking individual. Doing so reduces risk of making bad decisions.
For this reason, it is critical that people examine the data underpinning claims. Returning to the subject of education, Richard Reeves demonstrates how our perceptions can work against good decision making. In his most recent work, Of Boys and Men: Why the modern male is struggling, why it matters, and what to do about it, Reeves argues that Americans continue to embrace myths that undermine
education advancement. He points out that
Americans must admit that ‘feminism has done a huge amount of good in the world.’ It has created more and more opportunities for
women in education, sport, and leadership
opportunities in both the nonprofit and private sectors. He cites examples: how the assumption is women make less than men, but recent research suggests that 40 percent of women now earn more than the typical man, up
from just 13 percent in 1979; that two in five women are earning more than what 50 percent of men earn; that women now account for 36 percent of all undergraduate degrees awarded in STEM subjects, including 41 percent of those in the physical sciences and 42 percent in mathematics and statistics; that in every OECD country, there are now more young women than young men with a bachelor’s degree; and, that as a result of Title IX, the 2019 gender gap in bachelor’s awards was 15 point wider than in 1972 – but, in reverse, with women outperforming men.
His point is that people should learn from these successes to now address the fact young men are now falling behind. In short, feminism needs a corollary – a “positive vision of masculinity that is compatible with gender equality,” as young men are no longer capitalizing on education or being prepared for emerging labor markets. Again, he provides examples: Boys are 50 percent more likely than girls to fail at all three key school subjects: math, reading and science; and in the US, the wages of most men are lower today than they were in 1979, while women's wages have risen across the board. It is not and should not be considered, he says, a zero-sum gain, where one group loses out to advances of the other.46 His point and recommendations he makes are resonating across the P-20 educational spectrum – with both men and women.
It is a similar argument made by the UNESCO study cited earlier. That study, while noting it was critical that educational environments not
only focus on skills but on increased cultural understanding, equally argued that education should not only focus on their singular culture, that cultures around the world need to be understood and embraced. As the study noted: “Numbers without narratives, connectivity without cultural inclusion, information without empowerment, and digital technology in education without clear purposes, are not desirable.”47
Moreover, common sense would suggest, for example, there never has been one universally accepted form of the western literary or philosophical canon, free from criticism. To suggest otherwise is to be intellectually dishonest. No person can deny, for example, Plato severely criticized Homer’s work, even though the Iliad would most certainly have been reflective of the canon at the time. Equally, a person could not deny Galileo, Lobachevski, or Einstein would be anything less than critical of Euclid, though Euclid would remain part of the canon in each of their respective times just as Galileo, Lobachevski, and Einstein are part of the canon in our time.
Does this imply the canon is always valid
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