Forgetting Da Vincis Mona lisa

If i asked you "Who wrote the Gettysburg Address?" would you say with confidence Abraham Lincoln or would you just shrug your shoulders with a puzzled look on your face? Or maybe I could ask you "Who led the American revolution to victory in 1783?'' could you tell me George Washington? We can step away from former presidents even and I could ask you " Who wrote the nationally accredited poem The Raven, published in 1845? " you might just tell me Shakespeare... But really it was Edgar Allan Poe .

Imagine this , you're seventeen and walking into your World History class, the year is 2650 and your teacher says "welcome class today we are going to be talking about one of the worlds most famous paintings, Dispersion. Painted by Julie Mehretu 648 years ago in the year 2002." The teacher may go on about the meaning of the painting or the artist interpretation, but there you are sitting in class learning about something no one cared about 600 years ago and no one cares about now.

You see, In today's world more and more people lose sight of what history and knowledge hold and allow their minds to venture off into space, isolated around four walls, media, social lives, fictitious worlds and technology. We no longer self-educate or research topics that we question, yet we ask our friends of their opinion and side with the majority, We lack the ability to articulate our own opinions out of fear of rejection and disappointment.

"We do not create history, We are made by history"- Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King JR. I interpret this as "We forget that in which we came." Society lost its sense of direction on what it should be and focused on what we wanted it to be, but mankind is selfish. We act out emotion instead of logic, we destroy ourselves out of hatred and anger instead of building on a solid foundation out of wisdom, The Bible says "God gives wisdom to those who ask" yet our pride doesn't like free handouts.

In 600 years educators will no longer be teaching about those who "created history" but what came out of the things they had implemented, the things society views as conventional, but why read from the middle of the book and not the beginning of it. It has been said over the generations that history repeats itself, but if we were to lose our very own history, how would we solve future problems.

Education has lost its primary focus, we would rather inflict political opinions, religious beliefs, and stereotypes of the present and the future we seek out to construct on our children and separate their perception of reality from finding their own truth. Children are naive and will believe what they are told, as said by René Descartes "If you would be a real seeker of the truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."

"Those who stand for nothing, fall for everything"- Alexander Hamilton. This brings me back to what I stated earlier on those who don't articulate their own opinion... personally I cant fathom that idea, in my own beliefs, if i am having a conversation with someone about politics and you don't really have a standpoint on the topic, then I don't want to hear your thoughts, because then you would be a fool to express views on something you don't care about, and if you do speak your mind than you obviously have an opinion but sheltered it out fear of losing security of the way people view you, and that my friend makes you a coward.

If society keeps going down this road, there will be a day where educators forget Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, were even the most historical of events would fade into the normal days of the past.