My niece has been keeping me young (and entertained) the past couple weeks. She’s also, as a precocious 4 year old, reinforcing the importance of education. While playing, when practicing her letters and numbers, we are always trying to educate her the best way we can, so that she can become an active, productive, and considerate member of society.

Education is the foundation of everything else. Without it, there are no doctors, no lawyers, no firefighters or police officers…no anything. It is through education we can apply science and reason to improve our world. It is through educating our youth (and ourselves) that we achieve progress.

Primary and secondary education is a vital investment with a highly delayed payoff—it takes about 20 years or so to see the dividends. Luckily, continuous learning is gaining steam, and free online learning has become ubiquitous. You can learn to code, you can learn math, you can learn customer relationship management. But can you learn what being a global citizen entails?