The Death of Authority in the American Classroom
Written by Jeremy S. Adams |
Thursday, March 31, 2022
Classrooms have become emotive enclaves of a stark student-centered universe. This pivot towards the teacher-cum-protector role has colossally diminished the authority of the everyday classroom teacher because it has transformed the way students look at us. They are difficult to impress these days because the things that once commanded respect and imbued authority—intellectual achievement, virtuous behavior, classroom dynamism, prodigiousness, substantive life experiences—no longer attract the high regard they once did.
“I learned ancient Greek just so I could read Aristotle in his own language.”
It was early in the fall semester of my freshman year of college and we were reading a passage from Aristotle’s Politics in a political philosophy seminar. In addition to learning Aristotle’s view that man “is a political animal,” this divulgence from my young, first-year professor was neither a verbal thunderclap nor a haughty declaration. It was an offhanded remark, uttered as a trivial aside. As usual, he radiated confidence without the slightest hint of ego. His mastery of Greek wasn’t a topic of conversation among my classmates and no one ever mentioned it again. And yet, almost 30 years later, I can still recall experiencing a subtle pulse of enthrallment.
Granted, it did seem a little odd to my 18-year-old self. Was Aristotle so earth-shattering and profound he merited this type of Herculean effort? I was too ignorant at the time to be impressed. I didn’t know until much later how much harder Greek is to master than Latin, with its mercurial alphabet, foreign declensions, unique conjugations, and Byzantine rules of grammar. I now understand why people devote years of their lives in pursuit of this particular linguistic treasure from antiquity. And not just to read Aristotle. Goethe considered Homer to be superior to the Gospels.
Of course, not all the teachers from my youth were this impressive. Most were forgettable. Teachers try to make an impression, but as the decades pass most of our teaching moments are mentally tucked away into a few fleeting images. Our students might remember who wrote the Federalist Papers or how to write down the Pythagorean theorem, but that doesn’t mean they remember the moment they learned it or who taught it to them.
Still, most teachers radiated a genuine sense of authority. Children, by and large, once looked to their elders for answers to their most important questions. They did so for a simple reason: adults were recognized as depositories of guidance, or even wisdom. They knew what a youthful mind needed to master because they, too, were once young. In the course of life, adults had fallen in love and knew about rapture, longing, and the many ecstasies and agonies of the heart. They had made friends and lost friends and occasionally eulogized their friends. Many fought in bruising wars, marched against injustices, and still sensed the goodness of American idealism. They climbed mountains, walked trails, read dense books, memorized impactful poems, and knew what it meant to aspire and dream. They had first-hand experience with frailty of the body, myopia of the mind, and hubris of the spirit. They could detect the difference between true leadership and empty demagogy. They knew what was truly important, what was genuinely frivolous, and appreciated the scarce commodity of time.
As they aged, these adults sensed the seriousness of life. They recognized answers were “out there,” in the nectar and lemon juice of life, in the grasp of adventure and endless engagement—the answers were never found in the monotony of petty amusements or the prison of mindless distraction. But most extraordinary, if these adults happened to be teachers, they drew on their lives to bring the classroom to life. This is what the best teachers always do.
There are extremes, of course. When famed Yale English professor Harold Bloom died a few years ago, it was fondly remembered that he had all 10,000 lines of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” committed to memory, word for word. Conservative political theorist Harry Jaffa supposedly had a memory that was nothing less than encyclopedic, capable of retrieving long passages of dense texts from books he had read decades earlier.
In my own educational journey, there were plenty of impressive teachers who radiated authority without having to master ancient Greek or memorize the entirety of a canonical text. My freshman English teacher in high school, who also happened to be my father, could diagram complex sentences and had long sections of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar memorized. Many of my professors in college were respected scholars in their academic fields. The president of my university was a world-renowned expert in the work of Danish existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Authority was not in short supply.
Which is why I remember feeling a strong and buoyant desire as a student to impress these men and women. I wanted to contribute meaningfully to a class discussion, or write a cogent paper, or elicit a laugh during office hours. I wanted more than just a good grade or empty praise; I wanted them to see me as substantive, praiseworthy, and laudable. I wanted to earn their approval and affirmation, not because it was owed, but because it was freely given. I would have done almost anything to avoid disappointing them. As Adam Smith wrote in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, “To a real wise man, the judicious and well-weighed approbation of a single wise man gives more heartfelt satisfaction than all the noisy applauses of ten thousand ignorant though enthusiastic admirers.”
A Sinister Replacement
Modern education has replaced authority with empty adoration. It now encourages “ignorant” and “enthusiastic” admiration of children who frankly do very little to earn it. We have a lot of “noisy applauses” but precious little “well-weighted approbation.”
What caused the death of authority in the classroom? The answer is really quite simple: both the teachers and the students. In the time since I first started teaching over two decades ago, a radical reformulation has taken place in our midst.
The educational universe has slowly tilted away from its original mission of transforming and improving the inner fiber of young people. It used to be understood that because life is difficult, because success is fleeting, because relationships are enigmatic, and because our bodies and minds constantly disappoint us, a good life requires strength in all of its forms—moral, physical, intellectual. It is why character is destiny. It is why high expectations are a blessing. Life is tragic, yes, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a tragedy. We can successfully confront the world by improving ourselves.
While certainly not as important as the home or the chapel, the classroom used to be an important ingredient in the shaping and eventual ripening of a young person’s inner nature. Until quite recently, the world and the broader universe itself were considered fixtures to confront, not canvases to improve.
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Hasn’t Yet Been Tried
A nation as broad and diverse as ours has a great many challenges and a great many divisions…But we do have a system—devised and founded by men who understood the depravity of man and the corruptions of concentrated power—whereby no one faction gets a permanent upper hand, and there are exceedingly few permanent political victories.
It has been quite a week. On Tuesday I published a 6,000-word book review that got an enormous response by Square Inch standards. As expected, the author of that book and his tribe did not like it, but I did not write it in hopes that they would. They’ve been busy trying to come up with something to say, and from what I can see on Twitter they’ve landed on: “Mattson doesn’t understand Bavinck.” Or that I don’t understand what the author was actually saying.
I understand both perfectly well.
At any rate, as a result there are a lot of new faces around here. So welcome! Make yourself at home. If you are interested in weekly cultural commentary on a wide variety of topics, you’ve come to the right place. If you’re looking for a steady stream of negative polemical content like that book review, you might have come to the wrong place. I rarely write purely polemical essays. In fact, I think I have written two in the last decade, and it only happens when a strong sense of duty demands it. When theologian David Bentley Hart wrote a heretical essay on the resurrection of the body, I couldn’t rest until he was answered. And after watching for weeks people cheering this new book on Christian Nationalism, I decided to read it for myself. And, well, I was again compelled by a strong sense of duty.
It is not just the theology that bothers me, bad as it is. (I didn’t have “Calvinists for the inherent goodness of man” on my 2022 bingo card, but here we are.) It is the insatiable thirst that people have for power, and this is becoming a defining feature of our political landscape. I expect it from the progressive Left, which has always been about constraining people to their vision of the good. Ronald Reagan wasn’t lying when he said that a liberal is someone who wants to reach around your shower curtain to adjust the temperature of the water. Now the far Right wants in on that action, too, to achieve a State large and powerful enough to direct all of society to some higher, “common good.”
It is this coziness to and lust for State power that we ought to find alarming. Conservatives often mock the socialists who constantly argue that “true socialism has yet to be tried.” But I daresay it is impossible to listen to the nationalist crowd without hearing the exact same note: true nationalism hasn’t yet been tried. The problem has been poor implementation of an all-encompassing State; the right people haven’t done it yet; Stephen Wolfe’s hoped-for “Great Man” has not yet arrived.
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Don’t Be Silenced by Their Name-Calling and False Accusations of “Hate”
We are called to be faithful to the truth. The enemies of God hate the truth. And they would have us think that to speak the truth is a hateful or dangerous thing. They want us to fear their labels. They want us to fear being called bad names. But whenever the temptation arises, let us not fall back or retreat, but let us pray with Nehemiah, “O God, strengthen my hands.”
Fear can be an instrument for good. The fear of falling to your death may prevent you from standing dangerously close to an edge. This is a healthy fear. But fear can also be used as a weapon to hinder good. The fear of social disapproval may prevent you from doing or saying the right thing. This is misplaced fear. It’s the sort of fear that shouldn’t control our lives, and yet today, many are consumed by it.
The fear of being called a bad name, slapped with a dangerous label, or accused of thinking a wrong thing largely dictates what people can and cannot say, despite how harmless, good, or true it may be.
But if we wish to gain any ground in the public square, we must overcome our misplaced fear of being called bad names. We will be called bad names. That’s a certainty. Jesus was called bad names, but that did not prevent him from doing what was right. He spoke the truth, regardless of opposition because his God-given mission was not defined, dictated, or directed by those attempting to silence him.
It’s no different today. Political and religious discourse is dominated by name-calling in an effort to shut down an opponent without having to grapple with his ideas. We don’t need a debate on “racism” or “hate” because everybody knows these things are wrong. Simply, mark your opponent as a hate-filled racist, and you don’t need to entertain his arguments. We’ve already agreed that both racism and hate are wrong.
But false accusations of “racism” or “hate” are oftentimes only used to silence those who are neither racist nor hateful. It’s only those who reject such labels that the false charge is designed to silence. An out-and-proud racist doesn’t care if you identify his racism. He may even help you do it. As such, it is only those who are not hate-filled racists who are likely to retreat when the accusation is raised.
And when it is raised, it’s not because our opponents care about such things, nor because they genuinely believe we are those things. It’s raised precisely because we are not those things, and they know that we care about not being those things.
In this sense, they’re wielding our own principles against us. They’re beating us with our own moral measuring stick. And falsely so! But what might happen if we stopped caring about their false allegations? What if we stopped caring how that dishonest and morally bankrupt segment of society viewed us? Suddenly, their false accusations would be stripped of all their silencing power.
In the book of Nehemiah, we’re told that the enemies of God wanted to prevent Nehemiah and his men from rebuilding Jerusalem’s defences. Their tactic was to weaken the hands of the workers by manufacturing misplaced fear through a false accusation.
They attempted to do this by accusing Nehemiah and his men of “intending to rebel,” and this, they argued, was why they were rebuilding the wall (Neh. 6:6). The false charge was brought against Nehemiah and his men in the hope that it would “frighten” them from their task. The enemies of God were hoping, through a false label, the workers’ hands would “drop from the work, and it would not be done.”
There is nothing new under the sun. Rather than fairly portraying their political opponents, they resorted to misrepresentations – such as accusing them of extremism, or domestic terrorism, to weaken their hands, thereby, stalling their God-given task.
The same tactic is still employed today. “I don’t want to be considered a bigot,” people think, “so, I best abandon any public defence of what’s now considered a controversial opinion.”
Had Nehemiah and his men caved to the fear of a false label their God-given work would have ended. But unlike many today, Nehemiah and his men did not listen to the false charge, nor did they allow any fear of the consequences hinder their task. Instead, Nehemiah prayed: “O God, strengthen my hands.”
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Intersectional or Christian – Answering the “Who are we?” Question
Written by S.M. White |
Friday, April 19, 2024
There is always a danger that intersectionality is a temptation to culturally attuned and influence seeking churches. Yet a commitment to Reformed confessionalism and a recognition that God distinguishes the spiritual and temporal kingdoms he rules over we will have a bulwark against those who would wish to insert worldly agendas, and in particular those who seek to insert intersectional mandates to either syncretize or make use of Christianity towards an earthly end.One of the hot topics of discussion among Christians in the United States is the issue of Christian Nationalism. One of the most glaring problems with it is some of the proponents of it make no distinction between the theocracy of Israel and the other common kingdom nations that exist today. They propose that since Jesus is King, that there should be some sort of minimal national fidelity to a Christian creed, or some even suggest applying the moral law, even including the first 4 commandments, which would essentially make the nation a form of Christian theocracy. One can only imagine with politicians swapping out every 4 years or so what kind of God Biden or Trump might get to dictate what we worship, or perhaps which church they would delegate that responsibility to. Rome?
With Biden’s continuation of Obama’s fundamental transformation, and with a sort of cultural decline in general, there is distinct new culture arising to be the Antithesis, and even replacement of traditional Christian, (or so called family) values. Under the name of democracy, and human rights, abortion, race, LGBTQ, trans-humanism, and a host of other intersectional commitments combine where there may be a narrative of grievance or inequality, even down to “healthy-at-any-size” individuals joining together via “identity politics” in movement that has been termed Cultural Marxism.
Cultural Marxism is not like the old Marxism where the inflection points were between the material divisions between the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. The social classes and grievances today have been remapped to a group of intersectionals who oppose issues such as white-privilege, male-domination, hetero-normative dominance, with even traditional families being considered part of racial inequality, and therefore at cultural enmity with the intersectional comradery. These new intersectional cultural norms are considered necessary parts of democracy, which America assumes it has the right and responsibility to spread democracy globally, which now comes with these features such as LGBT included, or else the nation or leadership of that nation is pegged as undemocratic, or dictatorial and are therefore problematic.
One of the nations in the sights of this new values democracy is a more traditional values friendly and therefore new values resistant Hungary. Which is one reason many conservatives in America look to it as a beacon and guide for what America should be like. As a American, Reformed Christian who lives in Hungary, I have thought about these things and hopefully have some insights that might be helpful.
First off, Hungary is a culturally Christian country which reminds me more of the 1970s or 80s America. Hungary is more culturally Christian than formal. The statistics are that about half of the population identifies as Christian, where most of them identify as Roman Catholic, but about 1/3 as many of those identify as Calvinist. It has been my experience that most of the churches that identify as “Reformed” or Calvinistic, most would resemble more of a sort of “do-gooder” type of Christianity without much doctrinal understanding or confessional fidelity. Still, nearly 1 million people identify as Calvinists in this small country of about 10 million people.
It does differ from America and many of the Western European nations in that there is not much crime, or delinquency in its capital city Budapest. For example, there is not as much street art painted on buildings and hoodlums don’t go around and destroy cars, or art, and most parts of the beautiful city of Budapest are safe for a woman to walk alone, even at night. Right now the bricks on our sidewalk are being replaced, and there is this sense that the government cares for its citizens, the beauty of the city, the public transportation, good affordable food, natural gas heating, and clean water. It’s not a panacea here.
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