Sometimes my grandchildren think I was raised in an alien world. And they are right. The era they experience now and the era I experienced as a child are so dissimilar we often seem worlds apart. We are bonded by our love for each other. We share a common last name. We share a common language. We live in the same area of the USA. After that, differences erupt. When we talk about what we believe and value and what we hope for, our worlds begin to disassemble. While I speak of an American life predicated on the balance of freedom and responsibility and our rights of citizenship, and the American Dream, they give real, everyday examples of class-based discrimination, non-accountable behaviors by powerful people, and death of the American Dream. The self-evident truths of an earlier time in our nation no longer hold for children in the early 21st century.
I expand this disassembled reality to the relationship between teachers and students and the generational gap(s) between them. Without a shared trust in self-evident truths, why do we think children should believe what we teach them? Because our actions must be louder than failed words. Teachers have the opportunity and the capacity to show through role modeling that self-evident truths still exist.
What about self-evident truths?
Self-evident truths are propositions that are obviously, intrinsically, and factually true, requiring no other proof or evidence to be accepted and believed as a basis for living. Self-evident truths are mathematical, scientific, and philosophic.
- Two plus two equals four.
- Two straight lines cannot enclose a space.
- The sun rises in the east.
- Newton’s laws of motion.
- I think, therefore I am. (I do like Descartes)
And the list goes on.
When they are philosophical, their words have meaning that must be applied to all people in all times. The most famous statement of self-evident truths is in our Declaration of Independence. It says, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Even in the beginning of our nation, this statement held power as an ambitious goal because it was not completely true when it was written. Many of the signers of the Declaration were enslavers. None of the Declaration’s signers believed females were equal to males. And they did not extend equal rights to American Indian peoples. However, slavery was abolished, a Constitutional amendment gave women the right to vote, and in 1924 American Indian people were “granted” citizenship. For the first 150 years of our nation, self-evident truths were not true; they were a goal yet to be obtained by almost 3/4 of the population. In our most recent 100 years, the goal was actualized, and we could faithfully proclaim the philosophic truth of our “self-evident truths.
More importantly, perhaps, self-evident rights were interpreted as every citizen’s right to the American Dream, another ambitious goal for all people in our country and the world. With rights came opportunity and with opportunities fulfilled came “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The right to an American Dream meant that with their hard work all Americans could have employment, a home, and a standard of living that improved with each generation. The American Dream was synonymous with our self-evident truths.
What do my grandchildren and I know?
Sixty years separate my life from the lives of my grandchildren – 1940s and the 00s.
My world.
They hear my stories of childhood when children roamed the world safely. My Schwinn bike and later hitchhiking thumb were all I needed to explore my city of 70,000 people. Be home by supper, live by the Golden Rule, and follow the Boy Scout Oath and Law were my guidelines.
The adults in our neighborhood were surrogate parents to the 26 children who lived up and down our block and I obeyed them as I did my parents. At school, teachers led us in the Pledge and the 23rd Psalm every morning. We said “please and thank you” to the ladies who served our lunch. And when Miss Phillips, our principal, told us to take cover under our classroom desks during civil defense drills, we obediently did so. Teachers, principals, Sunday school teachers, pastors, and the judge who lived next door were beacons to me and my friends. If we behaved ourselves and got good grades in school, we would grow up to be like them and take our places in a better America.
It was an honor to meet our Governor. I knew our mayor. And my classmates formed the letters “Hi Ike” on the playground when President Eisenhower flew overhead. That evening, I saw the President walking with minimal escort at the All-Iowa Fair.
The running back on our football team was black, the left tackle was Lebanese, the tight end was a Mormon. Parents of my closest friends were doctors, lawyers, salespeople, and tradesmen. These were facts not things we thought about.
That world did not dissolve easily. Even when our government told lies about Viet Nam, JFK/MLK/RFK were assassinated, Watergate crashed around Nixon, Clinton lied, and GW Bush made up stories about weapons of mass destruction, government gone wrong did not tarnish our self-evident truths. When I once shook hands with former-President Clinton and Mrs. Clinton, I still respected the office held while marveling at their up-close personalities and his long fingers.
Although we knew the world was not perfect, the “American Dream” of our grandparents and parents still beckoned us forward. School was our ladder and higher education was our springboard to a standard of living and quality of life that promised to be better than generations before. And it all came true.
Their world.
My grandchildren tell me their stories. Roaming their world is limited to a radius of several blocks and they will never trust getting into a stranger’s car. Children are victims of depravity in their world; they are assaulted, abused, and killed. These children are not scouts and attend church perhaps once each year. They walk to parks and shops but only in groups, never alone. Today’s media tells frequent stories of children, especially girls, who disappear or euphemistically go missing.
Their school is not a place of safety but of potential danger. Since their enrollment in school, there have been more than1,400 school shootings, more than 550 student deaths, and 1,200 wounded students. Their schools are locked down when a classmate brings a gun to school. They view school violence not as an if but a when. School as a safe place to be is no longer a true statement.
They do not have faith in law enforcement. They see innocent people arrested, jailed, and shot. Even in the smaller cities where they live, good cops are bruised by bad cops. “Officer Friendly” is no longer real to them.
Our nation’s leaders tell them that nightly news is false reporting, alternative facts are real, people of color and different faiths are not real Americans, and all justice is transactional. If the President comes to town, it is for a fundraiser or an attack rally, and my grandchildren stay away. Politicians serve special interests not the people. They would not shake hands with a President. There are few adults in their world serving as beacons.
One grandson is a college graduate and two granddaughters, and another grandson college students. They and their parents are trading significant student debt in the traditional belief that a college degree is a steppingstone into the American Dream though, with this trade they already know that single-family housing is distant in their future. They are not wide-eyed and dreamy but coldly aware that equaling their parents’ standard of living will be the struggle not surpassing it.
To our grandchildren, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not self-evident.
Teachers as role models for self-evident truths
If not taken for their face value, these absent truths can be demonstrated. Self-evident truths are evidentiary. We can prove them today by the ways people interact with other people. And teachers are in the perfect position to be role models for children and adults of all ages.
This is not difficult to do. Teachers do these things every day without chest thumping or attention seeking. These are ingrained in us as public educators.
- We teach equality without bias or prejudice. We are not color or difference blind, but inclusive and respectful of the children we teach and of their families and their cultures. Our first task is to know and understand the children we teach so that we can meet their learning needs and through our teaching cause each child to learn. Every adult can fall victim to implicit biases at times. However, teachers are not every adult. We are trained to understand and avoid bias and to teach each child without prejudice.
- We teach children to pursue life with a growth mindset. We teach We are trained in theories and principles of childhood education and apply them in daily instruction that always pushes and causes children to learn. A child’s learning potential is not fixed but is constantly available for growth. The continuum of early childhood education to high school graduation is a constant opportunity for us to help each child to grow and improve their knowledge, skills, and life dispositions.
- We teach to empower their life with ambition. Every success begets more success. We teach and coach and direct and guide children in academics, activities, arts, and athletics. We are trained to develop the multiple intelligences of children and to bring out the best of their abilities. We value effort and improved outcomes knowing that we can help each experience teach a child that she has the power to decide her life’s goals.
- We teach children to achieve their dreams by leaning forward. Every lesson is about what comes next in a child’s learning continuum. If we look backwards, it is to understand the child’s background information and preparation for new learning. Dreams are in the future not the past.
- We teach truths holistically. The humanities matter because they tell real stories of life. Life is not always clean and pure, and the stories and literature used to education children tell how people have struggled. Our history certainly is not always clean and pure. We teach multiple perspectives without bias so that children can learn to see and evaluate complex issues for themselves. We teach skepticism and criticism so that children will not be beguiled.
- We teach so that children are prepared for their adulthood in our world. There are no “freebies” for the children we teach, so “bootstrapping,” learning from experience, and making the most of opportunities are lessons that matter.
- We teach with faith in community and the commonwealth. We teach children to view their communities synergistically. As individuals, they can only do so much, but as contributors to community they can do more. Each child receives benefit from the commonwealth and is bound to give back for the benefit of others. This makes our union of peoples and states successful.
The Big Duh!
My grandchildren are accurate and true in their observations and conclusions about out world today. The self-evident truths of our nation are difficult to find in the evening news or online news media. Together, they and I know that America and American values are being shaped not by self-evident truths but by the truth of self-interest.
They and I also know that we are what we do. If individuals mimic self-interested rather than self-evident truths, that is what individuals, then families, then communities become. Values beget intentions and intentions beget actions and actions create outcomes and outcomes reinforce values and on it goes. Our children and grandchildren deserve and need adults in their world who believe in and value self-evident truths. Role modeling matters and teachers can be role models for a better future for all children.