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It is getting tiresome to read about the angst generated by poor test scores in Milwaukee and elsewhere in our state and country. There have been and continue to be too many programs that have been tried without the desired outcomes. To me, the answer lies in building more libraries and fewer churches.

How is it that you can drive a few blocks and find one church after another but can barely find a neighborhood library? Why do we feel that listening to someone else tell us how to live is the only way we can manage to deal with our lives? Why don't we believe that an educated mind is a mind worth having? How about we start teaching our children to think critically?

They need to be aware of the world around them. Let's stop giving them the impression that someone in the sky is going to rescue them from the challenges they will face.

Our current governor is forcing big changes in education. He is moving the education of our children from the public sector to the parochial. This is a huge mistake. It does no good for us to ignore science and focus on filling children's heads with tales of arks, floods and magical amounts of loaves and fishes.

We need to get kids reading at an early age. We must not tell them that one book holds all the answers because this is a recipe for the creation of mindless followers. They must read a variety of books. Children must be encouraged to read books that look at the world from a variety of perspectives, books that ask more questions than they answer and books that encourage them to think about the world they inhabit.

I am not sure why this is so very difficult for people to understand. Another church, another minister, priest, rabbi or other religious leader is not needed. Who decided that the person standing up in front of them on a Sunday or Saturday has the answers? That person doesn't know any more about what happens after we die than some homeless person on the street.

If we really want our children to succeed in this world, we have to overcome our negative attitudes about critical thinking. Do we want to create sheep, or do we want to create leaders who can question what is going on in the world? It is apparent that if we want to create the latter, we must encourage young people to head in the direction of the nearest library.

It seems, as a society, we can build huge monuments to some magical deity, but we don't see the value in teaching our children to think for themselves. Until we understand that the survival of the human race is dependent on nurturing a literate population, we will continue to see the same results we have seen in the past.

More libraries and fewer churches are the direction we should move in.

Rose Locander of Waukesha retired in June after 33 years as a public high schoolteacher. Email rlocander@gmail.com