An Antonym for Fundamentalism

As a little grey-haired lady and former school person I watch these days half amused and half angry. It is the end of May and schools conduct fun days, award assemblies, and banquets. It appears to me that one of the side-effects of high stakes standardized testing is that once administered, teachers and kids feel as though the year is over. That perhaps explains the large number of video options in libraries, hard drives and networks. The role of teachers and administrators morphs in these final days from instructional leadership to crowd control. But, I digress.


This is Texas, and with the closing of this school year, as with every odd numbered year, the Legislature remains enthroned in Austin, wrestling with finance and public schools. We always seem to be the very last thing out of the hopper. As demagogues pontificate and amend proposed bills I am floored by the positions many of those in leadership assume. It is clear to me they deeply believe they have been to the mountain top and descended with the truth carved in stone regarding public schools. They are not to be swayed in this belief. They have a view of schools and a view of how to improve schools that is rigid, not to be swayed by logic, science or professional experience. They are fundamentalists.

I Goggled “antonym for fundamentalism” and though there were a lot of hits, each one I opened said “no antonyms for fundamentalism.” I found a host of great synonyms like die hard, extremist, fanatic, intransigent, reactionary, zealot, stick-in-the-mud, right-winger, etc., but no antonyms. I think this noun or adjective needs an antonym. I am here to argue that the antonym of fundamentalism is “educated”.

I shall not spend much time defining fundamentalism or fundamentalists. There are plenty of references for this way of thinking, and the synonyms above should help. The bottom line for a fundamentalist is that they have a belief system that will not vary, will not be swayed by logic, learning or science. They believe what they believe is a fundamental truth and will not budge. My connotation for fundamentalists includes an evangelistic component: not only are fundamentalists intransigent in their thinking, they are committed to both converting everyone else to their way of thinking and remain totally intolerant of different ways of thinking. I bet you know some folks like this.

We should talk about what an educated person is like. An educated person knows there are multiple ways to address any issue, any problem, and that is blasphemy to reformers, Pearson and standardized testers in general. An educated person seeks to learn those multiple ways and in a given context select a position or strategy that best suits the circumstance. An educated person relies on creative thinking, problem solving and research to explore those multiple options. To say to an educated person that there is only one view is the source of laughter and disdain. Clearly there are multiple views. An educated person believes because they know it to be true, that there is no one right way of thinking or believing, and that our beliefs must be informed by our science. If we have evidence that our belief is flawed, we should modify the belief in light of what we now know. An educated person’s thinking evolves. An educated person’s tolerance of other ways of thinking is very high. An educated person’s evangelistic instinct is to promote the development of other educated people, not to embed in law their own particular thoughts or beliefs at this given moment. It is for all these reasons that the fundamentalists tend to win debates with educated people. Fundamentalists believe they are right, and an educated person is willing to recognize and tolerate their belief.

Let’s begin with something simple like religious beliefs. Many folks in our nation have read the Bible, or at least some version or translation of the Bible. If before, during, and after reading the Bible one concludes this is a holy book and is literally and fundamentally the truth, then one is a fundamentalist. It does not matter that we know the earth is more than 6,000 years old, it does not matter that we know evolution is a valid scientific theory, it does not matter that we know the earth is not the center of the solar system or the universe, a fundamentalist will cling to the written word in the Bible as fundamentally true regardless of a host of evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, an educated person will read the Bible and find great truths, wonderful lessons, and seek to discern the overall message of the text though thousands of years old. An educated person will proceed to read the Koran, the I Ching, the Book of Mormon, Tripitakas, and the Bhagavad Gita, and other "holy books." The educated person might even read the God Delusion or other atheistic postulates in order to grasp the full dimension of human beings and their religious belief structure. Not the fundamentalist. The very thought of reading such texts is a threat to be banished. It violates what is fundamentally correct and must be purged. Should we find references to these texts in school we must exorcise them for fear that learning of other belief structures may diminish the fundamental belief structure.

The same is true of political beliefs. Fundamentalists tend to believe the government budget should always be balanced. They tend to believe that the taxes from those who have money should not be spent on providing basic services to those who do not have money. Educated folks think about all this differently. It is contextual. In certain times it is critical for the government to deficit spend and at other times it is critical for the government to balance the budget. If an educated person learned any lesson at all from reading a host of religious texts, he or she will know that the consistent message is love of our fellow humans and doing all that we can to help those in need.

Now to a complex question, assuming religion and politics are simple. Public Schools. Should we as a nation support and fund public schools or should education be an individual pursuit determined by the values and resources of individuals? Should we as a nation have compulsory attendance, or should we simply say anyone who wants an education is welcome to come, but if not, just stay home? Should we think about public schools in the same way as we think about the private sector, that is, competition motivates higher performance and greater reward? Or, should we think about public schools in the same way we think about other public functions such as law enforcement, food inspection, and water and sewer service? Should we think about public schools as complex social entities driven by relationships, or should we think about public schools as an education factory where we measure the products and hold the workers accountable? Should we think about public schools from the viewpoint of the state or national capital or from each local school system and the communities that support them?

The reformers have answers to all these questions and they are placing their answers in policy. They are fundamentalists. They have a view of what public schools are and should be. Educated people know better. They have read the research. They know the private sector, competitive industrial model does not apply to public schools. It is few and far between where such private sector experiments are successful. Educated people know the terrible impact high stakes testing and punitive accountability models have unleashed on public schools. Educated people know that diversion of funds to private sector experiments like charter schools and vouchers diminishes the possible positive impact of public schools. Educated people know that schools are much more like churches than they are like Wal-Mart or Microsoft. Educated people understand the thinking, the motivation and the actions of the fundamentalist reformers, but educated people know it is the wrong mental model.

Sadly, we are planning, funding, mandating and measuring an educational institution via a fundamentalist mind set, rather than an educated mind set. The hypocrisy of these efforts is devastating to current and future generations of children, and possibly our nation.

Yes, education is the antithesis, the antonym and the cure for fundamentalism. The earth is older than 6,000 years, men and dinosaurs did not walk the planet at the same time, and we orbit the sun and not vice-versa. To understand democracy we must look at other forms of government. To understand the free market we must look at other economic models. This is not blasphemy. This is education. One wonders how the fundamentalists gained control of the hallowed, noble institution of public education when in fact they appear to oppose its very existence.

There is no fun in fundamentalism. I pray that education survives this current mind set. I believe the only hope of that is education.

I hope your school year has been good and ends well.