It’s graduation season, and around my neighborhood, nestled as it is between two high schools, that means plenty of parties and festivities. Suddenly, all the kids who’ve been running the stop sign in front of my house and tossing empty Jim Beam bottles into nearby woods will assume the aspect of serious scholars—for an hour or so, at least.
In truth, it’s also a season of reflection—but not just the kind extolled in graduation speeches. Certainly many will scan their four years of high school and ponder all the friendships, football games, or pandemic challenges—all good, but ultimately fading into irrelevance. Instead, it’s worth reflecting on something with far-ranging implications: what America’s newest graduates actually learned in their 12 or more years of schooling.