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In the  Matthew McConaughey plays a former NASA astronaut, Joseph Cooper, in the not-too-distant future. Called to a parent-teacher conference over the behavior of his young daughter in school, Cooper discovers to his shock that  because she believes Americans landed on the moon.

In that future world, schools have replaced federally approved history textbooks with so-called “corrected” versions that portray the United States as a bad faith actor that faked the moon landing to accomplish global military supremacy. The film’s story implies that humanity has gone backward, with an emphasis on creating a pipeline for turning students into agricultural workers for cash crops, rather than physicians, engineers or astronauts.

While “Interstellar” is obviously a work of fiction, it paints an interesting hypothetical for how education can completely change the course of a new generation. The modern U.S. system of public education  in Cold War concerns that America needed to stay competitive in the sciences, as well as an emphasis in helping minorities and the poor have equal access to education.

In 2024, as misinformation, agitprop and deceptive artificial intelligence content proliferate, we find ourselves attempting to balance First Amendment rights and the openness of our society against public confusion, disorder and foreign influence. 

“Interstellar” portrayed a fictional world where schools denied the moon landing, but in our real world,  found in 2021 that 10% of Americans believed the Earth was flat and 12% said that we never landed on the Moon.  

Visit the social media pages of any astronomy group or space agency online, and you’ll find hundreds of scoffing commenters talking of a flat earth, “the firmament above,” and denials of landing on the moon. And what will really shock you? , as online troll factories based in foreign countries often stir up arguments just to keep Americans on .

There’s also growing questions about how algorithms affect what we see and hear and perceive. We need people who are trained and experienced in how to look past the superficial and correctly discern what is put in front of them.

It is in these times that having quality public education counts more than ever, because the only defense against lies, disordered thinking and ultimately a defective worldview is a solid foundation of knowledge. No law, no regulation or ban can keep lies from being spoken, but a well-trained mind that is able to employ history, science, the humanities and sharp critical thinking skills will keep Hawaii and our United States citizens mentally equipped for tomorrow.

Democracy depends on a majority of people who know what is right and choose it, not a minority of frustrated, burned out, sidelined people who still hold the sacred fire from a prior generation.

Local public schools and the U.S. Department of Education are important and need to be protected as a means for raising the next generation of patriotic, responsible citizens and training young minds. As someone who went to both public and private schools, I can tell you that both have their own unique place in education. 

We may have disagreements about public education as voters, but public education is very necessary for setting standards and instilling values for future Americans. We can always innovate about how we educate and make changes to things that aren’t working, but it’s important to keep public education especially as we face a flood of bad actors and bad information online, some of which can be increasingly compelling if one is not trained.

How To Defend Against Misinformation

Last Thursday, I celebrated my 45th birthday, so it’s been a long time since I was in K-12 education. But one of the things that was very useful for me growing up was the fact that public schools taught us through a combination of oral history and hands-on exposure to the subject matter we were learning.

In the case of oral history, Hawaii knows how powerful of a connection can occur when elders are brought before young people and impart knowledge. People who have actually experienced the history being taught or done the things being trained are the best mentors and pass on to the next generation a confidence that is difficult to erode by misinformation.

In public schools, my generation met with Holocaust survivors, WWII veterans, astronauts, civil rights leaders, famous inventors and many more. When we got to meet them and talk with them, we weren’t just learning the past, we were being given precedents for future actions. We understood what to do and what not to do, why we believe some things and why we don’t believe other things. 

One of the things I most appreciated growing up was the immersion in field trips, many of which were structured to allow us to see first-person how things worked. We got the theories explained to us and the practice demonstrated to us. “The textbook says this; the expert says this; and the hands-on confirmed this” was how we learned. 

Many of these were also meant to stir up career interest – so, for example, my class got to tour an air traffic control center, a fire station, a wastewater treatment facility and, my personal favorite, a repair hangar. My freshman high school class even went on a tour of Washington, D.C., and got to watch FBI agents train. 

The more real-world things you get to see and touch and explore, the more balanced your worldview becomes and the more practical of an understanding one has. You can’t be easily deceived when you have a good foundation. Our public schools continue to do this to this day, which is great, but we should be doing this even more. This is how you raise a generation of professional, skilled, middle-class workers, and this is how you build a nation of high-information individuals.

I had teachers who had served in the Vietnam War, and even others who were World War II veterans. Learning from instructors like that who applied their life experiences to our educational experience was special and it gave us respect for them and respect for America.

All this goes to say that public education is important and public education has an increasingly valuable role in holding the line for America’s institutions, values and collective knowledge. Yes, we do need to improve some things and make reforms to ensure education is delivered with the highest level of quality, just like everything else. But public education is a great service to America, and we need to protect it.