God Help Us

I provide here a column by Lawrence Brown, a teacher who taught my two boys for many years.  His CCT column was entitled: “Are there too many liberals in education?” I provide his views partially because of what he referenced in his last remark about one critic saying: “God is not in public schools, nor in you.” I continue to be amazed at many people’s uncivility and intolerance of different views.  I try to be tolerant, but it ain’t easy in today’s culture “wars” and on divisive political battlefields.

(begin) What makes a 'local' columnist local isn’t that we write about local things. You can write us and we’ll write you back. National columnists rarely do. My recent column about teaching history generated a lot of feedback, much worth sharing.

Judith wrote, 'Parents may not be qualified to ‘dictate’ to school boards or educational leaders with regards to curriculum, but they certainly do have the right to question what is being taught in the classroom and voice their concerns. They deserve clear explanations of curriculum content, especially in areas of human sexuality and matters of historical perspective.'

'It should be noted,' wrote Don, 'that it has been shown in countless situations that most (history) teachers lean at least left of center to fully left. You personally may be OK with that but that is the unfortunate bias that academia and most media have shown over the years — and that is the issue many parents disagree with. Of course, an ‘objective’ history teaching curriculum would be best driven by the schools, but how do parents or any of us believe that would be the case with the bias that exists in the profession?'

I think both writers are correct. Especially at the college level, humanities professors often do lean left. The quest for ideological purity is pernicious in almost any setting … even a theological seminary. Excessive certainty is the enemy of spiritual and intellectual growth.

Having said that, many professions seem to have ideological leanings. On many construction sites, I’ve noticed conservative talk radios on. Do the workers listen because they’re conservatives — or are they becoming more conservative because that’s what they’re hearing? Probably both.

I suspect most police officers lean ideologically right — and they have the power of life and death over us. At this writing, five times more American police officers are dying of COVID than of gunshots. A former member of our family (until a divorce) — an unvaccinated officer — just died of COVID. Ideologies have their price, but what happens when we start to impose tests for ideological purity over our various professions?

Almost all public surveys agree that the more education people have, the more liberal they get … and the less education they have, the more Republican they vote. If that’s a persistent pattern, one will tend to find a self-perpetuating cycle: mostly liberal professors teaching mostly liberal students.

How can parents trust that teachers work from a lack of bias? Well, first of all, nobody could study history long without forming some kinds of personal conclusions. It’s what you do in the classroom that counts. I wrote my own textbooks. Addison-Wesley published my geography textbook years ago and I taught from my school-published 'American Argument' text for years. The whole course was based on constant debating and the development of public speaking skills, what another reader described as 'being taught how to critically think without the insertion of political bias.'

But in an era of tribal ideological polarization, our trust and goodwill are being replaced by automatic assumptions of wicked intent. God help us if the control over curriculum falls to the temporary victors in the culture wars. That prospect should scare us all.

I worry too that some critical race teachers and professors are not content to see racism and oppression as a stain or departure from America’s best principles but argue it’s the essence of who and what we are — and that in certain matters, we have no right to be wrong.

The world is watching the rise of autocratic leadership in China, Russia, Eastern Europe and even here. If parts of academia are sunk in self-hatred, America will lack the will to defend democratic principles here or anywhere, just when determined resistance is most crucial.

Self-criticism and self-defense are not mutually exclusive — but if the extreme Left doesn’t see the American experiment as worth continuing and the extreme Right is busy subverting it — democracy will fail.

And then some of my mail, far more than formerly, is just nasty. 'God is not in public schools, nor in you,' wrote someone. 'If you can’t do, teach.' The shoulders droop for a moment, then we search once again to compose a civil answer. (end)

It’s Advent, and it’s time for reflection and soul-searching.  How can we do better?  How can we act better?  How can we make the Holy Spirit that is within us all be manifested in what we say and do? Let us pray.

Deacon David Pierce