by Mike Davis, Ph.D.
Head of School

Let me start with the disclaimer that I am not trying to wade into the divisive political dialogue taking place in our nation. Just as I do when I teach history, I try to withhold my own personal judgments about different leaders and policies. I want my students to look at conflicting evidence and perspectives and come to their own conclusions and understandings. To be sure, I will challenge them in a Socratic style to ensure they have thought through their positions. But, I think it is irresponsible to impose my views on my students (I even try to be careful in terms of my choice of texts and classroom materials).

 

Yet, it is difficult as a school leader not to comment on the potential negative effects that this election cycle might have on young people. We have seen uncivil behavior that is shocking in our modern age.

 

As a historian, I could point to other elections that were really nasty. The ultimate example would be in the 1850s when the party system broke down over the issue of slavery and its expansion. In 1804, we had a sitting Vice President, Aaron Burr, who shot his political rival, Alexander Hamilton. Nixon’s team of Plumbers tried to bug the Democratic National Headquarters. While we know that Nixon tried to cover up the White House connection to the break-in, we may never know if he ordered it.

 

Nevertheless, Nixon may have felt justified; he thought that LBJ had bugged his campaign airplane in 1968, because Johnson was worried that Nixon was leaking secrets about Vietnam. Poor John Adams faced rough criticism from his one-time friend Thomas Jefferson who helped organize an effort to smear his reputation in the 1790s. Reflecting the values of the time period, the Jefferson camp attacked Adams as, “a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” I could go on and on with amazing and nearly unbelievable stories from every decade in American history, along with examples from both parties of cruelty, lies, deceit, and general incompetence. That should not surprise us, as politics is a human enterprise and human fallibility is ever present.

 

But, today, we are a society that has rallied around values of respect, equality, and tolerance, and that is what makes this cycle somewhat hard for young people to wrap their heads around.

 

After all, they attend a school in which we talk about treating others with kindness and respect, not yelling or attacking another person who disagrees with you, and not engaging in rude put-downs of others. In fact, at CA, these actions will likely end up in a serious conversation and disciplinary action. We ask students to listen to the voices of others with whom they disagree in order to find common ground. Our classes spur debate, as students struggle with real-world issues. When talking to students about politics it is useful to remind young people that both parties are capable of “dirty tricks” and smear campaigns. In fact, the study of politics can be a great place to help students learn about character.

 

We can help young people learn critical thinking by helping them cut through rhetoric and look at evidence and data. David Brooks had a recent column in the New York Times, (April 12, 2016, “How to Fix Politics” ) in which he wonders about our dysfunctional political process and hypothesizes that it might come from some significant social changes that have happened since WWII.

 

Brooks argues, “In healthy societies, people live their lives within a galaxy of warm places. They are members of a family, neighborhood, school, civic organization, hobby group, company, faith, regional culture, nation, continent and world. Each layer of life is nestled in the others to form a varied but coherent whole.”

 

But, since WWII, “America’s community/membership mind-set gave way to an individualistic/ autonomy mind-set. The idea was that individuals should be liberated to live as they chose, so long as they didn’t interfere with the rights of others.” The evidence is compelling. Brooks cites a 2005 study that found that 47% of Americans reported knowing none or just a few of their neighbors. Brooks observes that Americans are good at tending to family and close friends. We are even good, he argues, at tending to our superficial friends—those hundreds of people we “know” on Facebook and LinkedIn. But, the “middle ring” relationships are ones that Americans have let “deteriorate.”

 

These are elements of civic relationships in group settings: neighborhood associations, schools, churches, etc. As Brooks claims, “With middle-ring memberships deteriorating,

Americans have become worse at public deliberation. People find it easier to ignore inconvenient viewpoints and facts. Partisanship becomes a preconscious lens through which people see the world.” In smaller community settings, we have to interact with people who may disagree with us or challenge our understanding of the world.

 

That is why I love schools and particularly this school. For a school that attracts students across the ages of 4 through 18 and pulls from 73 zip codes, we are a unique community. We have socio-economic diversity. We have members of our community who hold dramatically different political opinions. (On one single day a month ago, I received an email from one parent who noted our “liberal” bias in the curriculum and a then another criticism from a parent that thought the school was “too conservative.”) I love this diversity of thought and I enjoy the various news articles that I get from parents and my students that represent both left and right points of views. I look at the climates on college campuses that have been increasingly more divisive and, like many other educators, have been concerned about moves to stifle free speech. Given the magnitude of issues facing the world, we are going to be lost if we can’t have dialogue.

 

Schools offer a place for respectful and challenging conversations. It is important that we all lean in and help model appropriate civic discourse for our children. It is critical that we approach this from a virtuous perspective – thinking about the common good. In the courses I have taught on ethics, it has been fun to talk about the role of government in society and the economy and point out how both the left and right can offer valid strategies to achieve a shared notion of the common good.

 

Yet, the battle over those approaches and the inflamed rhetoric can mask this for students. A great example would be when I asked a parent, Dr. Stephen Medema, who is a professor of economics to speak to the juniors about “opportunity costs” and he pointed out the massive contradictions and problems in our thinking when we pursue idealistic positions. He had a great lesson, asking the students if they were for or against exploitative child labor laws in the third world, and then if they were for or against the sexual exploitation of children through prostitution.

 

Of course, our kids unanimously raised their hands saying they were against these terrible things. Then, the professor systematically went through how policies that crack down on child labor lead to more child prostitution in the Third World. These unintended consequences of policy and political opinions are important to understand. We best understand through open debate and calm reasoning. I hope we, as a school, can model something different and, to quote Graham Nash, “Teach our children well.”