I had a conversation with a parent a few years ago which I’ve thought about many times since. She asked to talk because she said that she was worried about the way that her son was coming to see the world. He had been very patriotic and loved his country a great deal, she said. But now his patriotism had begun to be replaced by pessimism. This pessimism encompassed the country, its leaders, its direction, etc. Ultimately, this pessimism was causing his love of country to turn into cynicism about his country.
We had an interesting and meaningful conversation, which I won’t produce here. But I’ve thought a great deal about that conversation because I don’t think that this student’s experience is unique. I’ve interacted with many students who seem to feel cynical about their country, their leaders, the people around them, society in general, or even humans in general. It has made me wonder about the beliefs and frameworks in students’ minds that underpin this way of seeing the world. As educators, I think it makes sense for us to ask if they are learning these frameworks and beliefs from us?
Two years ago I wrote an article titled Pluralism as an Academic Good. This article argued in favor of the benefits of educating from a perspective that emphasizes that the world is a complex enough place that intellectual humility is merited and makes us better, that listening to others and attempting to see the world from perspectives other than your own is enlightening, and that there is ample room for disagreement among reasonable people. At the risk of shameless self promotion, the article is worth a look if you haven’t read it yet. But one of the benefits of teaching from this perspective that I didn’t talk about in the article is that this philosophy is deeply hopeful. As a result, teaching from this perspective gives a teacher the opportunity to be a voice of hope in the lives of students.
To make sense of why, consider the following fascinating study conducted in the United States and the Netherlands (you can download the full study from the link). The study had two major conclusions of which I will speak. The first is that people on the extreme ends of the political spectrum tend to believe in conspiracy theories more than others. In other words, if you imagine a graph that has political beliefs from extreme left to extreme right on the x-axis and a belief in conspiracy theories from low to high on the y-axis, then the average line of all data points looks like a smiley face.
The second conclusion is even more interesting. The researchers found a mediating variable in that smiley face. A mediating variable is a variable that is able to statistically explain why the trend exists. In this case, the mediating variable was the extent to which study participants agreed with the following statement- “With the correct policies, most societal problems can be solved very easily.”
Can you see the reasoning here? And can you see what that reasoning has to do with seeing the world in cynical terms? The more a person believes that the answers to society’s problems are really very simple and really very easy to implement, the more likely they are to see society’s problems as the result of corrupt people who just want to harm society. This is an internally consistent way of seeing the world. If the world’s problems are really very simple and really very simple to solve, then it seems that there are only two reasonable explanations for the continued existence of those problems. The first is that the people who can implement those solutions are wildly incompetent. Too incompetent to see how simple the problems and the solutions are. The second is that those able to implement those solutions are corrupt and don’t want the problems solved, either because they are more interested in personal gain, or because they are evil. So if you teach beginning from the premise that the world is simple, its problems are not complex, and the right answers are easy to understand and implement, then a broad belief in shadowy corrupt people who are ruining things on purpose is a coherent logical result. And another coherent logical extension from that thought is to see the world in cynical terms: people are out to get us, those who disagree are corrupt, the only way to save the world is to defeat our enemies, etc.
In counterpoint is a different set of assumptions from which one can teach based in pluralism. This set of assumptions starts from the idea that the world is a complex enough place that problems often do not have easy and clear answers. That often we are dealing in trade-offs rather than perfect solutions. That issues are complex enough that reasonable people may disagree with how they should be thought of or approached. That intellectual humility is an important personal and educational value because alternate viewpoints can enlighten us even if we don’t agree with all elements of an alternate viewpoint.
I believe deeply in this set of assumptions because they seem manifestly true. In Apology Socrates says that his greatest wisdom is understanding the limits of his wisdom, “I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others: but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and in this oracle he means to say that the wisdom of men is little or nothing.” The same sentiment echoes across the great works of philosophy and religion. It also echoes across the lives of all who have been so certain only to have their mind or heart changed by circumstance, new ideas, or the opportunity to hear a different perspective.
But not only does this set of assumptions comport with reality, it also offers a great deal of hope. It offers the hope that people with whom we disagree are at least potentially sincere and intelligent. It means that there is hope for mutual understanding and societal progress even though problems are not easily solved. There is hope for friendship across ideological boundaries. And there is hope that disparate elements in society can and should live productively together. It means that fellow citizens need not be conquered, or short of that tolerated until they can be conquered. Instead, it means that fellow citizens should be engaged, that we should seek to find commonality, and that we should accept that sometimes we will see and choose differently. And it means that students need not see the fact that their society is imperfect as definite evidence of the corruption or stupidity of the people around them.
I hope you can see the hope in that perspective. And I hope you can see the value in asking if your students experience your presence in their lives as a voice of hope.
So I offer some questions to consider. When discussing complex issues, do you ask students to consider the issue from the eyes of those who disagree with them? Does your teaching ever make them uncomfortable enough to prompt deeper thinking, or does it primarily justify the way that they already think? Is the goal of your teaching primarily to give students what you consider to be the right answer when it comes to serious issues or does it primarily invite students to consider what they think about serious issues? When students leave your classroom, do they leave believing that the world is simple enough that they always know who the good guys and bad guys are, or do they leave with some wonder for the complexity of the place and circumstances in which they live, and some appreciation for how hard people have had to work to make it better? Do students more often leave your classroom with all the answers or with a determination to find the best answers they can?
I encourage all of us to be a voice of hope for our students. Both because it is true that there is enough good in our world to believe in it and because our students deserve to be taught that it is true.