An Antidote to Destruction

Whether it is the Howard Zinn Educational Project, the 1619 Project, Critical Race Theory, Rethinking Schools, Teaching For Change, or Gender Ideology our K-College education system has been exposed for being the source of manipulative, untruthful, and poisonous learning resources. 

These resources do not aim to foster human flourishing and independence, preserve the American tradition, pass down wisdom of liberty and justice, teach the truth of our history, or promote the moral, philosophical, and political principles of our Founding and Constitution. 

Instead all of these schools of thought have one thing in common: they aim to destroy. 

1. They destroy the truth by teaching false hoods that America was founded in the year 1619 in conjunction with the first slaves brought to the new world. 
2. They manipulate emotions to get people to believe that America has no redeeming qualities and that we must move beyond the principles of our Founding. 
3. They overlook the failures of government and how their own worldview and policies trap those who they claim to be helping. 
4. They aim to pit American citizens against one another by any means necessary based on their race, ethnicity, sex, etc. 

But it isn’t just these venomous schools of thought that we should be concerned about because in most schools they aren’t even the greatest problem. The biggest problem isn’t the misleading Anti-American venom but rather it is the spineless “neutrality” that doesn’t teach or defend the moral, philosophical, and political principles that made our Revolution, Declaration and Constitution possible. This “neutrality” is actually Progressive American history that undermines the American tradition and Western values. 

It is easy to destroy. It doesn’t take a particular set of skill sets to burn down a house. But you do need a specific set of skills, knowledge, and habit of thought to build and maintain something good and beautiful. 

That knowledge and habit of thinking is where we must focus our time, attention, and effort. We cannot preserve American liberty without a complete renaissance on how we teach our Founding Principles and Constitutional Governance. The current trajectory and results are unsustainable. The more students graduate High School and go off to college without a firm and foundational knowledge of the moral, philosophical and political principles of our Founding, the more they are vulnerable to be swept away by the false and manipulative emotions of anti-American thinking that rage in K-college education and are promoted incessantly by mainstream and social media. 

The American family and students deserve better than poison and deserve more than being complicit in our own destruction. The higher aim of a profound education shouldn’t be to highlight what we are running from, but rather what we are running towards. 

That is why it is time we focus on what we can build that restores the bonds of American citizenship, teaches the wisdom of the ages, inspires curiosity, and builds virtuous, strong, and independent citizen students. These are all qualities that have been overlooked or diminished in bureaucratic education. 

The truth is that a great and profound history, civics, and American education should do three things: keep us free, ground us in wisdom, and inspire us to be great.

Education created to keep us free asks bigger and better questions in order to better understand the truth. For instance, an eternal truth is that absolute power corrupts absolutely and our Founders knew this and was fearful of the consolidation of powers. Questions that can stem from this are: what is the nature of power in man's nature? What is absolute power? Why does absolute power corrupt? How does a corrupt man and society think and act? Is there a way to prevent absolute corruption? How does a society that knows this truth study, act, and think? 

These aren’t just questions for the next multiple choice test but rather questions that are vital and profound to live free and live well in American society.

An education centered on grounding us in wisdom analyzes the difference between liberty and licentiousness. It develops deep thinking on how to best live a free and virtuous life and how to pursue happiness. It asks fundamental questions such as, what are the intrinsic, natural, and eternal duties that correspond with my unalienable rights, what are the forces that will try and tear down liberty, what are the limits of man and government? Wisdom comes from learning true and meaningful lessons from the events of history and how those events are linked. Instead of focusing on disconnected and superficial facts the American student can grow wise by studying the battle between liberty and tyranny and how free people respond to both. 

An education that inspires us to be great brings out the best in our humanity. Abraham Lincoln said when recollecting on the impact of learning about Washington and his men crossing the Delaware on Christmas that there, “must have been something more than common that those men struggled for;” something even greater than National Independence. Lincoln fundamentally understood that there had to have been something more than just Independence that those men suffered for, something more than a battle over taxes. 

And there was. Do our American students know what that something is? 

It is the feeling of knowing that you control your own destiny in this life. That you, and I, are free men, born flawed and equal by the Creator who endowed us with Rights that fundamentally belong to us as men and human beings. With these Rights we are empowered to become the best version of ourselves, to build great and noble things, to pass down hard earned success to the next generation. 

An education that inspires us to be great inspires us not because of man’s perfection but rather because of how flawed we all know we truly are. We are all fallen, destined to die, and because of this eternal truth we can become greater than we ever thought possible because of the evidence of those who came before us. Those who suffered and sacrificed for things we take for granted, those who endured hardships, who overcame the worst of our passions, and found themselves exhausted, yet victorious. 

You might be thinking this type of education doesn’t exist in the “real world” and is fairy tale land. To that I say that just proves how far we have fallen, how much a better way is needed, and that if we show half the passion and resolve to restore and build than others have to destroy we would surprise ourselves with what is possible. 

When education is centered around a better understanding of true, good, and beautiful things the results are immeasurable. 

We expect liberty to endure forever yet High School students cannot articulate the beauty, truth, and essence of liberty and what it requires from us? Instead of this being the outlier, imagine millions of students and families re-learning the principles that are necessary for us to remain free and virtuous. 

Because isn’t that the whole purpose of historical education in the United States? And we, as Americans, have the unique and special privilege to study the great minds of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, AND Philadelphia. We can learn from the best and brightest minds of freedom, Rights, equality and nature over the past 2,5000 years. If we want our students to learn what it means to be free and the duties that come with freedom we must expose them to these great minds. 

These concepts all stem from the moral, philosophical, and political principles of the American Founding. American students and families must spend less time “re-imaging” education and more time pursuing the truth of our history, the good of our Founding, and the beauty that a life of freedom can provide for ourselves and each other. 

Because when we understand these principles we know how to live by them and defend them and instead of being participants in our own destruction we can use the rich history of our Founding and Western tradition to preserve what we must know and value.  

Let us begin.