A Jehovah’s Witness comes to my door and tells me that there is only one way to find peace and salvation… through Jesus Christ the Lord. Arne Duncan comes on my TV telling me that every youth in America needs to follow one set of national standards for education, to achieve economic salvation of sorts. A noted journalism professor is interviewed by NPR saying that the decline of newspapers is robbing us of the ability to all read the same editorial at the same time so we as a country can all talk about it together.

In a world of now seven billion people, with any number of religions, languages, cultures, rich veins of varied wisdom, and exploding amounts of knowledge that can not even begin to be encompassed by any learning content standard, many of us still seem to long for the unity of the one path and the power of millions marching to the same command. When the all-powerful deity, enlightened leader or best-practice expert sounds the call, everyone should have the common grounding to understand and appreciate that it is time to march and answer that call. Continue reading →