Tag Archives: prejudice

When Self-evident Truths Fail, Teacher Role Modeling Matters

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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.

 Boy Scout Oath and Law

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.

When the Edges Crumble, We All Fall Down

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Schooling has never been agnostic.  The egalitarian notion that “a mind is a terrible thing to waste” has always been slightly twisted to mean “as long as that mind thinks like my mind”.  As a generalization, we purposed each generation to create enough educated and productive citizens to support our continuing commonwealth.  So much for intentions. 

Within the past decade, the conceptual walls of restraint that have kept schooling and America’s best interests in touch with each other are failing.  The edges of our restraints are crumbling as they are cleaved by narrow-minded self-aggrandizers.  As a result, our enduring concept of an “American Way of Life” is shrinking into regional pockets of “my way of life”.  We no longer have a critical mass of self-balancing integrity, but loud spoken factions wanting public education to espouse their selective self-interests.  When the edges of our social contract fail, and they are, we will fall down.

What we know about us.

In truth, the education of children always has been self-interested.

For several millennia, royals learned to read, write, and count and the masses mumbled.  Property and wealth were guarded by laws interpreted only by men who could read and write it.  Illiterate people were easier to rule.  This social construct for education migrated to America.

The first school in the English colonies, the Boston Latin School of 1635, taught a narrow curriculum to a small number and group of children for specific community purposes.  To fill in the blanks, Boston’s town elders wanted their sons only to have a classical education like their father’s education so that sons could take their rightful place in the elite political, social, and economic life of New England.  Latin, Greek, the Puritan Bible, and the arithmetic of commerce.  White, Puritan, propertied boys only, please.

Up and down the English colonies, this was how early efforts in public education began.  New England merchants, middle colony merchants and landowners, and southern planters each assured an education for the propagation of their regional ways of life.

A change began in our post-Revolutionary expansion into western lands.  Early 1800s immigration brought peoples who aspired for economic and social mobility contrasted with the protective, conservatism of our colonial forefathers.  The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 said “…Article 3.  Religion, morality, knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, school and the means for education shall forever be encouraged” and ideas of a more universal education to support an expanding nation crept into public ed, slowly but not for everyone.  This was the 1800s.  Enslaved people were purposefully kept illiterate.  American Indian children were consigned to boarding schools to educate native culture out of their future.  Gradually, white girls were enrolled in school.  Public education though still white, discarded its denominational and propertied requirements.

Eastern cities used compulsory school attendance laws to manage millions of immigrant children.  Truancy laws were lax when children were an essential and necessary low-cost labor force for mill work. Truancy enforcement became stronger when the need for literate, voting adults was required.  An eighth-grade education was the American educational capstone through the 1930s.  The need for a high school education was confirmed only after America entered WW2 and too many draftees lacked the basic, secondary education our military required.  Sound cynical?  It was. 

For the most part, 19th and 20th century America shaped our public ed into this:  an assured child daycare system that freed adults for work, an elementary-level education that prepared adolescent children for adult employment, a literate population able to read newspapers and magazines for their daily news, and an inculcated understanding of white, mainstream history and non-parochial values.

Still sound cynical?  It was.  It still is.  Politics shapes educational practices constantly.

Public education served special interests beyond literacy.  No matter the need, public ed has been our conduit for government taking significant, universal actions to stem perceived national emergencies.  When President Truman signed the National School Lunch Program, he not only fed school children, he provided a federal subsidy to our nation’s post-war farmers that continues today.  We eradicated polio in the 50s by lining up every boy and girl in school for a shot of Salk and a sugar cube of Sabin vaccines.  Children were a captive public health clientele.  The President’s Physical Fitness Awards became the standard in school PE to assure a constant readiness of fit, young men for military service.  A letter and lapel pin from Ike kept me doing pushups for years.  When the Russians launched Sputnik, we strengthened high school math and science curricula and enrollment in German language resurged because German was the language of physicists.  Public ed was a launching pad for the space race.  Schooling has been an agent for economic stabilization, public health, national defense, and international competition, forever.

In 2002 No Child Left Behind was a knee-jerk response to the downward trending of domestic NAEP and   international PISA test scores.  Politicians feared that the assessed education of American children was failing to keep up with the scores achieved by children in China.  If this continued, the United States would lose its status as the leading international economy.  Nationally mandated curricular standards and testing swamped schooling for the next decade.  We studied Finland’s educational delivery as a model for besting China.  Huh?  With NCLB we let an implied perception that our nation’s international economic status was sliding beat up students and teachers and schools for a decade.

A lesson in a senior economics class should ask this question:  What single expenditure balances a state’s annual budget?  Answer: Money for public schools.  Every governor runs as a “Friend of Education” making loud criticisms regarding the state’s past educational report card with promises for future improvements.  Once elected, each governor, regardless of promises, uses the state’s annual allocation to public education to balance the state’s annual budget.  When revenues are low, the Gov cuts education spending.  Governors ease the impact of inflation on other state agencies by regulating school funding.  The failure to increase education spending always is blamed on the opposition party.

“According to The Century Foundation, we are underfunding our K-12 public schools by nearly $150 billion annual, robbing more than 30 million school children of the resources they need to succeed in the classroom”.  Except, fully funding public education would require spending that partisan governors are unwilling to commit.

When Schools Are Underfunded, Children Suffer

These are facts; you can look them up.

Critical junctures today

The liberal-minded desegregation of public schools in the 1950s and 60s is losing ground to a re-segregation of local schools.   New, conservative state statutes espousing parent rights allow charter schools to evolve into select-enrollment enclaves receiving public funding.  Parent choice is no longer just a choice of available schooling but a right to create schooling for parent purposes.  Segregated charter schools not only reject children of color but also children with educational disabilities.  Courts reason that assigning state funding to the children being schooled rather than to school districts justifies a re-segregating of public schools. 

https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/black-segregation-matters-school-resegregation-and-black-educational-opportunity

The Return of School Segregation in Eight Charts

States where the governor, legislature, and state Supreme Court are held by one political party are using partisan power to change public schooling.  Statutes are being written to shape curriculum, subjects, and teaching strategies to further partisan thinking.  Books are banned, curriculum is prohibited, and school leaders who oppose such can be charged with felonies. 

https://www.eqfl.org/board-of-education-passes-anti-LGBTQ-rules

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/1600-books-banned-2021-22-school-year-report-finds-rcna4836

Why Is This Thus?

Perhaps Sir Isaac Newton explains the reversal of integration in public education policy with his third law – for every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction.  To wit, slavery led to the abolition of slavery and freed slaves led to Jim Crow laws and that led to the desegregation of schools.  Now, an equal and opposite action reverses integration into a legal resegregation of schools.  However, to accept this explanation is to justify doing wrong and labeling it as right.  Is equal opportunity under the 14th amendment just a majority party definition?  Today, yes.

There are other forces at work. 

Arlie Russell Hochschild (Strangers In Their Own Land) examined the sociology of Louisiana and neighboring communities in Mississippi and Texas.  Specifically, she examined the effects of partisan politics on a population already plagued with a congruence of economic, cultural, and political pressures.  Highly dependent upon a regional oil employment and affiliated industries that made their communities into historic company towns, these working families are not only dependent on industry pay checks but also forced to live in chemically toxic communities.  Politically afraid, they oppose all governmental entitlements that help people of color with food stamps, jobs, and job training.  They see the world as win-loss and believe liberal government is taking from them to give advantage to others.  They support conservatives who are cheerleaders for their local fears. 

But reductive policies and practices are not found only in deep southern states. More than half our 50 state legislatures have entertained bills to restrict curriculum, subjects, and books.  More than half have considered legislation that would restrict student opportunities based upon gender identification. 

School boards in all states are being approached by parents demanding specific books be removed from school library circulation.  Populist censorship is determining what children can read in school. 

What Are We To Do?

The Newtonian pendular swing of partisan-written educational policies will not serve the long-term future of our children.  Special interested voices make the endgames of all their machinations defined by the widest arc of their collective policy statements, and these increasingly speak for fewer and fewer of our population.  Each iteration becomes more and more radical or reactionary and less and less unifying.

I am guided by the sign-off words of a late-night radio host I heard in the 1970s.  “When you know what is right, try to do it” and I flavor his words with Margaret Mead’s commandment “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think”.  Throughout time, when adults attempted to shape the world their children would inherit by placing bias and prejudice in their upbringing, disaster has been sprung upon the world.

An older slogan comes to mind.  Nancy Reagan asked children and young adults to “just say no” when confronted with illegal drugs in the 1980s and 90s.  We need to tell our governmental representatives they are to “just say no” to any legislation intended to ban books, restrict curriculum, or restrict educational participation for special interested reasons.  Our children need to be educated to think and not to regurgitate selective and biased thinking.