October 25, 2023

These past two weeks of October have tried our ability to communicate. Free speech, either oral or written, has been tested. For educators, it is a poignant moment. Has our hard work yielded benefits for our students or are we playing second fiddle to social media, the press, and fragments of public opinion? Has the case been made that history is not just a collection of facts to memorize, but a set of narratives that, in the aggregate, help us to understand why we do what we do? Have we not learned that speaking and writing are the most essential tools of human existence, that without the ability to talk to each other, we have a divided culture that cannot grow, but only continue to fracture? Why, with our love of progress, have modern science and logic been officially challenged by some of the most influential voices in our society?

Let’s assume that the four questions posed are interconnected, particularly in the current context of the Israeli-Hamas conflict. Certainly, Frank Bruni thought so in his recent New York Times subscriber newsletter:

I wish I lived in a universe as politically reductive and morally stark as some other Americans do. How clarifying that must be. And I wince at the way in which the deadly tribalism of the Middle East has been met with the dreary tribalism of American politics — with lazy and self-serving responses to harrowing circumstances that are ill-served and grossly demeaned by them.

Frank Bruni

There is some angry sarcasm embedded in those words, and Mr. Bruni may be right. As educators, we look at the historical analyses of any event and rewind to the sources of the words. Because we can’t talk to each other, we neglect to fully understand the very nuanced history of the Middle East, particularly the home of the Jewish people in a primarily Muslim domain. Because we can’t talk to each other, we fall into the trap of what Bruni calls “lazy and self-serving responses.” Jonathan Haidt, in a recent post, points the finger at Gen Z, turning our societal fractures into generational fissures:

Members of Gen Z are not shy about speaking up against injustice, but they generally do so only when they believe that most of their peers share their views and they will receive online affirmation for their statements.

Jonathan Haidt

Haidt would not attribute Gen Z responses to lazy thinking, but thinking with fear; fear of being canceled, being banished from the tribe because one’s beliefs do not align with the rest of the group. In our current culture, speech, something we always valued dearly, has become the defining characteristic of our group memberships in this world. Say something that others do not appreciate, and you are banished to the land of those naive citizens who believed that the First Amendment of the Constitution was real. And because words have become weaponized, transgressors are not only banished socially but privately and professionally. A recent NYU Law School graduate had her offer to a prestigious Winston & Strawn law firm rescinded for her email comments on who bears responsibility for the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. Is that who we are? If so, we should live with the ants. They are the quintessential lockstep groups in each of their colonies.

And what of the truth? Outside of scientific measurement, we discover the truth through collaboration, peer review, and most importantly, direct communication, oral and written. If these processes occur in hives, bubbles, tribes, and echo chambers, then we are not having an open conversation, an open exchange of ideas, and an open exercise using the plasticity of our brains to revise our views of the world based on new learning, or not.

This is a call for collective wisdom. When bad things happen in the world, why don’t we rise to the occasion, come together, and do what is necessary to support all of the victims? Why aren’t we focused on solutions for moving forward rather than affixing blame for the past? Because we can’t talk to each other. Because we can’t find safe ground for consensus. Because we don’t want to be excommunicated by our communities. As schools, we have to be very careful of hypocrisy because our students will see it for what it is. We can’t have restorative justice policies within our little communities, and then issue public statements condemning parties in a war. We used to be able to condemn human rights violations, but this recent explosion in the Middle East, loaded with such violations, was praised by some. To be true to our idea of understanding, we must accept those words because they are protected by free speech. But we must also talk to each other to identify from where those words emerge.

In our search for collective wisdom, we’ve somehow lost the concept of purpose. Why do we do things? Because we’ve always done them, some say. But this conversation is not about change management; it’s about never losing sight of purpose. The only way to do that is to start talking to and stop yelling at each other. As Stephen Covey often said, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”