Being a teacher in our age of perpetual school reform, I’ve often thought about Winston Smith, the main character in George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Smith works in the Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites history so it conforms to Big Brother’s current version of the past and the facts.
The connection has always been that education experts also tend to rewrite the past. That way, they can disregard their failures even as they recycle those failures and reintroduce them in schools.
That’s still true, but “Nineteen Eighty-Four” has acquired a new relevance over the past sad handful of years. I’m talking about our once — and in his own mind, future — president.
In my classroom, I’ve always remained strictly nonpartisan. My students have frequently asked about my political views, especially at election time, but I’ve always disappointed them. Teachers can have a disproportionate influence on their students, and when it comes to politics, I haven’t wanted to exercise that influence. When they’ve asked about particular issues, I’ve done my best to express both sides’ positions in terms of relevant history, the Constitution and right reason.
That’s a manageable task when the issue is tax policy, defense spending or even an issue as emotionally charged as the Second Amendment.
I find it impossible when the fate of our republic is hanging in the balance.
In “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” the Ministry of Truth trades in propaganda, the Ministry of Peace conducts perpetual war, and the Ministry of Love metes out torture. It’s a world in thrall to “the intoxication of power.” The official language, Newspeak, diminishes words and grammar in the cause of diminishing thought and free expression. Doublethink means “claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts.” It means the “ability to believe that black is white,” and the even more pernicious capacity “to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.”
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it.
Before you get the wrong idea, I didn’t dispute Mr. Trump’s legal claim to the presidency. He was duly elected in 2016.
But do you remember his narcissistic insistence within hours of moving into the Oval Office that his inaugural crowd was bigger than it visibly was? Do you remember his press secretary’s insupportable assertion in the face of overwhelming evidence that Donald Trump’s inaugural crowd was the biggest ever, “period?” Do you remember how the newly inaugurated Trump, having sworn on Jan. 20 to preserve, protect and defend the First Amendment, had, by Jan. 21, declared himself “at war” with the inconveniently free press enshrined there.
Do you remember the doctrine of “alternative facts,” the malignant justification his counselor offered for all the wishful thinking, all the misrepresentations and all the patent lies? We’re not talking about opinions, or even facts that are reasonably in dispute. We’re talking about the “willingness to say that black is white.”
We’re talking about doublethink.
Unlike the standard political disputes between liberals and conservatives, that’s something that directly threatens my students, something about which I can’t remain impartial.
Schools aren’t responsible for the machinations of Donald Trump’s mind. And alongside some Trump supporters’ palpable bigotry, I know decent people who still voted for him in November 2020. But I also know that people like you and me are sometimes predisposed to believe what we want to believe, regardless of the facts and where reason should lead us.
When it comes to dealing with facts, schools do bear some responsibility for the state of the union. For decades, experts and the schools they’ve “transformed” have sneered at facts. Content and knowledge have been exiled from classrooms in the name of “critical thinking skills.” The immediate result is a broad, perilous ignorance of civics and how the republic works.
The damage, however, runs broader and deeper than that. Because, at the same time that we’ve banished facts and content, we’ve encouraged students to express their opinions. I’m interested in what my students think, but I’m not interested in listening to them run their mouths when they don’t know what they’re talking about. That’s why we prepare in class and at home for our debates and discussions. You can’t think in any meaningful way without something to think about. When it rests on false information, or no information, the best reasoning can’t lead to a valid, just conclusion.
Several reform bandwagons ago, I attended workshops where we scored student writing. Students were required to choose, research and describe a simple procedure as one of their mandatory statewide assignments. One student sample we reviewed explained how to change a spark plug. It won a high score and rave reviews around the table for its creativity, organization and voice. Unfortunately, if you followed the directions the student provided, your car would never start, as his procedure was factually wrong at several points.
When I pointed these errors out and suggested they should affect our evaluation of his procedure, many of my colleagues were confused, even outraged. In their minds, the spark plug procedure’s accuracy and whether it was based on actual spark plug facts, was irrelevant.
This devaluation and denial of objective truth is what too many schools have been teaching and preaching for the past 50 years. Multiply the cumulative impact on decades of graduating classes, and you’re left with a nation for whom facts are either irrelevant or a minor inconvenience.
Orwell called it doublethink. You can read about it in his book, or you can listen to pronouncements from the throne at Mar-a-Lago.
We the people must choose between believing truth and believing lies.
We can deny the truth for a time, but in the end, we can’t escape it.
Gravity exists, whether or not we believe in it.
We are standing at the brink.
Once the ground is rushing toward us, it will be too late.
Peter Berger has taught English and history for 30 years. Poor Elijah would be pleased to answer letters addressed to him in care of the editor.
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