On the Necessity of Education

This morning I was checking my Twitterfeed and came across this post by James Purefoy about some article in The Guardian that upset him and had him bemoaning the necessity of better education. Because Mr. Purefoy and I seem to share a similar philosophy about life, I clicked the link.

Sick to my stomach, but how to educate and stop it? guardian.co.uk/society/2012/n…

— James Purefoy (@JamesPurefoy) November 20, 2012

The article was about female genital mutilation (FGM). It bothered me enough that I couldn’t really read the whole article. It did set my mind whirling, though. Three things came to me:

1) I thought about our friend, Jan Eisler, who is a secular celebrant and performed our wedding so many years ago. She was a vocal activist against FGM. I haven’t talked to her in ages, though we’ve managed to keep in touch. We need to plan a visit.

2) The concept of FGM makes me cringe, of course. I’m female. I don’t want that done to me. It does in some ways call to question the common act of circumcision of boys in this country. What if that’s just as bad? I know I thought about it quite a bit when my son was born. I know I did some research that seemed to indicate that there were some benefits to circumcision, and some risks. In the long haul, it seemed that circumcision is not detrimental to boys. But what if I’m wrong? What if it’s just so institutionalized that we think nothing of it? I shudder to think about it.

3) I remember one day when I was a graduate student and some random person came to my apartment door, and I (perhaps foolishly) opened it. It was a young man, carrying his bible, trying to engage people in conversation, presumably to convert them. He said to me (and I’m paraphrasing), “What do you think we need to solve the world’s problems of hate, starvation, and sadness?” Of course it was a loaded question. He didn’t expect that I’d have an answer.  “Education,” I replied. “Because if people knew better they wouldn’t do horrible or stupid things.” I still stand by that. I think a lot of the world’s problems could be solved with education.

That’s why I teach. That’s why I keep learning. And I’ll do that until I die.