I’ve been to Boston a handful of times. From those visits, I can recall navigating the transit system; trekking to monuments of the founding colonies and the Revolutionary War; visiting an Irish pub with live music pouring out into the street; and enjoying an oyster bar, purportedly frequented by Founding Fathers.

My favorite destination in Boston, however, is a humble piece of sidewalk with a commemoration of the first public school in what would become the United States. The setting is a far cry from the 1600s, and obviously the school is no longer there. It would be easy to walk right past.

It is striking that we commemorate the humble public school. Boston is full of firsts: historical locations and destinations, places where actions and decisions were made that forged a nation. Yet among the commemorations of the Tea Party and Paul Revere’s ride is this note about a school that was open to the community.

On the face of it, school has changed a lot. But the radical idea that all people are capable and worthy of an education supported as a public good is a seed that was planted four centuries ago. Today, we continue to cultivate this idea and even expand upon it. Education has grown in its scope and purpose, as well as welcoming people across gender (the first public school was available only to boys), ethnicity and background. Now, we take it for granted that 4- and 5-year-olds all have the opportunity to walk into a room with sensory tables and carpet squares fitted specifically to them. The furniture gets bigger and the books get thicker, but the scene is largely the same as they’re completing high school.

What strikes me especially as I think about a school building, whether it was the very first or the one currently going up in my neighborhood, is that we had to imagine the possibility. It is not obvious. Let’s bring children together all in one place and teach them reading and fractions, maybe something about our history? Maybe something about their possible futures?

Public school is our greatest invention. Sure, we’ve created automobiles, computers, Doritos, music and Wordle, but even these pale in comparison to the great idea of education. After all, where else do we publicly, collaboratively embrace the idea that our next generation can and should be collectively lifted up in order to create the next big idea? It’s paid off. So many of us point to teachers, second only to family, as those who helped us to figure out what we are capable of. When I ask my own students how they got to this point, they almost unanimously point back to a teacher who changed their life for the better. Schools elevated them, and even as these students leave teachers behind, their new heights remain.

For all of the benefits that school affords individuals, though, this isn’t why I think we invest in schools — or why you might think we should invest more. I’m grateful that my own kids have benefited from educations here in Utah, but now that they’ve moved on from those public institutions, I’m thinking about all the students following in their footsteps. While I would like to believe that I care about each of your own children, their individual growth is not what I most admire about the system.

I’m a fan of education for all of our children because of what it does for us collectively. We look forward to a next wave of leaders and innovators, the people who will build the bridges both literal and otherwise. These are the people who will, perhaps, be readied to save us all, as well as to raise their own families and another generation of learners.

Our schools, our teachers, building upon a foundation whose stones were laid along a dirt path in Boston before we’d even considered the existence of this country, they make that all possible.

Closing note: I’m grateful to my friend and colleague John Armstrong for his contributions to this space for the past 40 months of regular columns. I’ll miss John’s thoughtful ideas here, but I’m lucky in that I can still walk down the hall and ask advice about science, teaching and writing.

Adam Johnston is a professor of physics and director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at Weber State University, where he helps to prepare future teachers and provides support for classroom educators throughout Utah.

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