Teaching Independence
- on 07.02.10
- Education, Philosophy
- 4 Comments
Sunday will be — or was (depending on when you read this) — the 4th of July. We Americans will be — or were — celebrating our independence.
From what? you might ask.
From our oppressors, we would respond.
The English? you ask. (Poor English people. Can you imagine them watching us celebrate being independent from them every year?)
Not really, no, we respond. After all, none of us were ever oppressed by England.
I mean, raise your hand: Have you ever been oppressed by an Englishman or -woman?
Didn’t think so.
____
The 4th is not about our freedom from England. It’s about freedom from tyranny — from unjust, exploitative, illegitimate force and violence.
It’s about the day when the leaders of the thirteen “united States” (not, interestingly, the “United States”) said that there are certain fundamental truths that everyone can see — truths about people and governments and God and countries — and that anybody who violates those truths forfeits his (or her) authority to rule.
But notice that they claimed these were truths everyone could see. And notice how they felt it necessary to explain their actions to the world by writing up a “Declaration.”
And notice that they didn’t declare war on the 4th. They simply claimed to be speaking the truth and explaining themselves.
____
Now, the guys who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence weren’t all good guys. But we can learn something from them, nevertheless.
The Declaration of Independence was an attempt to remind everyone of important truths (important truths they all already knew), to convince them that the government of England had violated those truths, and to convince them that the citizens of the thirteen American colonies were justified — because of those violations — in no longer seeing the government of England as their government.
The road to independence, in other words, begins with truth, reasoning, and argumentation.
____
If you want to teach independence to your children, then, what must you do?
First, teach them to see truth.
Second, teach them to understand how others see the world.
Remember, the Declaration of Independence doesn’t appeal to truths that only Americans or Christians could see. It appeals to truths that everyone could see. The Declaration of Independence tries to start its argument from “common ground.”
But even if you can’t find “common ground” with an opponent, you still need to understand how he or she sees the world. You can’t help someone get from the wrong place to the right place if you don’t know where he’s coming from!
Third, teach them how to make a case, or construct an argument, that others will find convincing.
Remember, the job of the Declaration of Independence was to convince the rest of the world that the American colonists were right. The Declaration isn’t a law that forced people to agree. And it isn’t a declaration of war that threatened violence if they didn’t agree. Its job was to make a rational argument that rational people would find convincing.
Fourth, teach them how to write.
The Declaration is extremely well written. It wouldn’t have had nearly the force it’s had for 200+ years had it not been.
But also, the secret to the Declaration of Independence is John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government. Everyone had already read John Locke’s book, and been convinced by it. All the Declaration had to do, then was to remind everyone of what John Locke had said about people and governments and God and countries, and then convince them that what Locke had said applied to the American situation.
John Locke’s book was a culture changer. Without it, there would have never been a Declaration of Independence.
____
As homeschoolers, you have already declared your independence from the “normal” school system. And that means you have the freedom to teach independence to your children.
The 4th of July is here to remind us not to let such opportunities go to waste!
-Micah Tillman
[Micah is a Mt. Sophia graduate who is working on his doctoral dissertation at The Catholic University of America. He also gets to teach philosophy (as a "teaching fellow"), which he loves.]
Related posts:
Micah, You hit on important human dynamics skills- speaking (and understanding truth) and perspective taking. Good human relationships depend on this, as well as nations.
Argument construction- that is vital in friend/family relationships, workplace dynamics, politics, and ANY culture change.
“Teach them to write”- If we want to truly be culture creators, we have to join the John Lockes and Thomas Jeffersons who have gone before. We need to write GREAT things full of GREAT thoughts from a GREAT God.
Great post. Thanks.
One of the most difficult tasks in argument construction is managing your emotions well enough to actually be able to argue, rather than attack.
So much of what we need to argue against, for example, is stuff that makes us feel threatened. And when we feel threatened, we get angry. It’s a natural human response. Fight of flight!
But it’s so much more difficult to actually deal with another person’s position — to analyze it and critique it rationally — when we’re in Fight-or-Flight mode.
So maybe I should have added, “Teach emotional maturity” to the list. That’s a REALLY tough one, but one very much worth doing.
Hear, hear! Micah, I appreciate your words on so many levels. On a purely personal, emotional level, I was born on the 4th of July. Though I had no hand in that, I have always been proud of it, and the implications of being an Independence Baby. On another level, the main reason I chose to homeschool my kids was to teach them independent thinking, not following the crowd, but evaluating what they see and hear, as well as helping them form a Biblical worldview. Finally, we studied logic this past year, and probably shall continue with more of that, because I so agree with your statements on argumentation. We actually learned the difference in a discussion, a disagreement and an argument — none of which are bad unless people start attacking each other. Thanks for the great writing!
Can you point me to far more articles like this please?