I think the biggest gap here is that our schools are usually focused more on debunking stories than telling them.
In Egan's terms, that's probably a symptom of being overly focused on Philosophic understanding, to the exclusion of everything else. Other people have called this mode "propositional tyranny".
The end result is that some people feel skeptical or lost when it comes to questions of meaning, while others fall for the first conspiracy theory they hear, because finally they've found a way to have everything make sense.
As soon as I pick any specific examples, this will become controversial. But one story I had in mind is the Big Story of American history (probably because that's the history I know best). There are two main opposing stories that we can tell.
The first story was expressed most succinctly by Lincoln in the opening lines of the Gettysburg Address: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
Martin Luther King Jr. affirmed the same story in his "I Have a Dream" speech: "When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
My own words pale compared to those two giants. But I would summarize the story as saying that America has been successful as a country because it was built on a foundation of recognizing human rights and individual liberty. And despite our many flaws, throughout our history we have become better and better at extending those promises to all Americans.
I associate the opposing story mostly with Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States," since that was one of my textbooks in school. But more recent examples would probably be Ibram Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning" (though I confess I haven't actually read it) and the 1619 Project.
In this alternative history, America has been irredeemably racist from the beginning. And although our founders paid lip service to noble ideals, they were primarily self-serving rich people who simply didn't want to pay taxes to King George.
These two narratives both have some basis in fact and leave out other facts. But I think rather than nitpicking each story, a better way to compare them is to see where they lead us.
The first narrative guided the Civil Rights movement. The second narrative leads us to treat politics as a zero-sum game, in which the goal is to win victories for the good side by defeating the bad side.
And I believe the influence of that second narrative is a major cause behind the dysfunction in both of our political parties. On the right, it leads to Trump warning the crowd on January 6th that, "if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."
On the left, it leads to the view shared by none other than Taylor Swift, in her song "Only the Young":
"They aren't going to help us;
Too busy helping themselves.
They aren't going to save us;
We have to do it ourselves."
Neither Trump nor Taylor would appreciate being equated with one another in this way, but I believe there's a fundamental similarity in their acceptance of the idea that politics is inherently self-serving.
So if we want to fix our politics, I think the first step is to find a way back to uniting around a shared vision of what America is meant to be. And that has to start with telling a better story about our history.
I asked for an example, and that was one — and one you did a good job of expressing (admirably not chastising only one side). Thanks for it.
This fledgling community of ours has ample numbers of folks on both sides of the war, and since the doom of all comments sections is to become Just Another Place To Do Culture Wars, I'm going to end the comments on this thread. (If we'd ever like to do a book club where we probe these matters, we can! But it needs to be when we can see each other's faces.)
I'll say this, for the moment — the pattern Dueling Histories° is coming up. (Maybe that's when we should do a cameras-on meeting...)
From a Montessori perspective, my understanding is that at the Elementary level (ages 6-12) there are 5 "Great Lessons":
1. First Great Lesson - Coming of the Universe and the Earth
2. Second Great Lesson - Coming of Life
3. Third Great Lesson - Coming of Human Beings
4. Fourth Great Lesson - Communication in Signs
5. Fifth Great Lesson - The Story of Number
That said... at the public Montessori Charter School that one of my kids attends (and the other one used to attend, but that kid now homeschools) I am not aware of any classroom that ever got past the second great lesson over the course of a school year. I have had teachers tell me how much they love telling and working with these stories but "it's hard to find the time" to do so. I'm a Godly Player, so I love NOTHING more than making and holding space for "BIG WORK" (which would mean big history, existential wrestling, etc.) and when I hear they don't have time for these stories it hits me in my core, because I feel like these big stories is where the magic and purpose and meaning are found.
I do not know if our local school is the exception or the rule here. But, I do believe with all my heart that one of the most challenging -- and most important -- things we can offer our kids is a sense for their place in the world. A grounding backdrop. And that means not just the physical location/geography, but their place in time against the backdrop of history and the connections to meaning and purpose, and those connections extend not only backwards to the beginning of humanity, but also also forward to the future. The ability to both zoom in and zoom out (and maybe zoom between eras and places?) can bring such meaning and purpose which is one of the things I love about your Science is Weird classes. I have a learner in my family for whom meaning and purpose REALLY serve as gatekeepers when it comes to learning, so these are not just hot topics for me as an individual, but also as a homeschooling parent.
I think the biggest gap here is that our schools are usually focused more on debunking stories than telling them.
In Egan's terms, that's probably a symptom of being overly focused on Philosophic understanding, to the exclusion of everything else. Other people have called this mode "propositional tyranny".
The end result is that some people feel skeptical or lost when it comes to questions of meaning, while others fall for the first conspiracy theory they hear, because finally they've found a way to have everything make sense.
> “our schools are usually focused more on debunking stories than telling them.”
Ooh! Can you say more about what you’re thinking about, there?
As soon as I pick any specific examples, this will become controversial. But one story I had in mind is the Big Story of American history (probably because that's the history I know best). There are two main opposing stories that we can tell.
The first story was expressed most succinctly by Lincoln in the opening lines of the Gettysburg Address: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
Martin Luther King Jr. affirmed the same story in his "I Have a Dream" speech: "When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
My own words pale compared to those two giants. But I would summarize the story as saying that America has been successful as a country because it was built on a foundation of recognizing human rights and individual liberty. And despite our many flaws, throughout our history we have become better and better at extending those promises to all Americans.
I associate the opposing story mostly with Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States," since that was one of my textbooks in school. But more recent examples would probably be Ibram Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning" (though I confess I haven't actually read it) and the 1619 Project.
In this alternative history, America has been irredeemably racist from the beginning. And although our founders paid lip service to noble ideals, they were primarily self-serving rich people who simply didn't want to pay taxes to King George.
These two narratives both have some basis in fact and leave out other facts. But I think rather than nitpicking each story, a better way to compare them is to see where they lead us.
The first narrative guided the Civil Rights movement. The second narrative leads us to treat politics as a zero-sum game, in which the goal is to win victories for the good side by defeating the bad side.
And I believe the influence of that second narrative is a major cause behind the dysfunction in both of our political parties. On the right, it leads to Trump warning the crowd on January 6th that, "if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."
On the left, it leads to the view shared by none other than Taylor Swift, in her song "Only the Young":
"They aren't going to help us;
Too busy helping themselves.
They aren't going to save us;
We have to do it ourselves."
Neither Trump nor Taylor would appreciate being equated with one another in this way, but I believe there's a fundamental similarity in their acceptance of the idea that politics is inherently self-serving.
So if we want to fix our politics, I think the first step is to find a way back to uniting around a shared vision of what America is meant to be. And that has to start with telling a better story about our history.
Oof! Culture wars!
🤯
I asked for an example, and that was one — and one you did a good job of expressing (admirably not chastising only one side). Thanks for it.
This fledgling community of ours has ample numbers of folks on both sides of the war, and since the doom of all comments sections is to become Just Another Place To Do Culture Wars, I'm going to end the comments on this thread. (If we'd ever like to do a book club where we probe these matters, we can! But it needs to be when we can see each other's faces.)
I'll say this, for the moment — the pattern Dueling Histories° is coming up. (Maybe that's when we should do a cameras-on meeting...)
From a Montessori perspective, my understanding is that at the Elementary level (ages 6-12) there are 5 "Great Lessons":
1. First Great Lesson - Coming of the Universe and the Earth
2. Second Great Lesson - Coming of Life
3. Third Great Lesson - Coming of Human Beings
4. Fourth Great Lesson - Communication in Signs
5. Fifth Great Lesson - The Story of Number
That said... at the public Montessori Charter School that one of my kids attends (and the other one used to attend, but that kid now homeschools) I am not aware of any classroom that ever got past the second great lesson over the course of a school year. I have had teachers tell me how much they love telling and working with these stories but "it's hard to find the time" to do so. I'm a Godly Player, so I love NOTHING more than making and holding space for "BIG WORK" (which would mean big history, existential wrestling, etc.) and when I hear they don't have time for these stories it hits me in my core, because I feel like these big stories is where the magic and purpose and meaning are found.
I do not know if our local school is the exception or the rule here. But, I do believe with all my heart that one of the most challenging -- and most important -- things we can offer our kids is a sense for their place in the world. A grounding backdrop. And that means not just the physical location/geography, but their place in time against the backdrop of history and the connections to meaning and purpose, and those connections extend not only backwards to the beginning of humanity, but also also forward to the future. The ability to both zoom in and zoom out (and maybe zoom between eras and places?) can bring such meaning and purpose which is one of the things I love about your Science is Weird classes. I have a learner in my family for whom meaning and purpose REALLY serve as gatekeepers when it comes to learning, so these are not just hot topics for me as an individual, but also as a homeschooling parent.