Education and School Matters
Dear Student Leader,
What’s the difference between education and school? Are they one and the same? If you’ve never thought about it, continue reading this letter.
You attend school to receive an education. School is the structure — the desks, the building, textbooks, and material components. School also includes teachers, administrators, your peers, and the staff.
An education is how you apply what you learn from the things and people in school. At Umoja we say, “Mattering is intersectional-cultural, social, political, civic, spiritual.” How you use your education demonstrates mattering.
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.
— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Education is your goal. The degree is secondary to acquiring knowledge and developing the skills to impact others and improve your life. Learn what you can in school and afterward apply your ideas to improving conditions in your community.
It’s your responsibility to uncover the hidden curriculum. Remove the white sheet that hides your history from the class lecture. Use your smartphone, social media, and the library to discover multiple perspectives of pivotal events shaping our world.
Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson and Black History
Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson started a movement to teach Black history in 1926. He created Negro History Week which evolved into Black History Month. One hundred years later, it’s on you to continue Woodson’s efforts.
February will come and go, but you can extend your education beyond Black History Month and illustrate mattering in your community.
Education can equip our minds with strategies to engage in resistance to injustices. It can also encourage compliance. Will you use school to support liberation or enslavement? You decide how you will use education, because you matter.
We commemorate one hundred years of Black History Month observances in 2026. Today, we can take the stories of our ancestors, acknowledge their struggles in schools, and use education to lead change.
Now, repeat the encouraging words of Baba Jesse Jackson, “I am somebody.”
The Umoja Community Education Foundation is here to support you in the process of becoming the best version of yourself. Follow and contact us:
In solidarity with your success,
Dr. V
Author’s Note: Another version of this post appeared on The Good Men Project.
Author
Dr. Vernon Lindsay
