(An earlier version of this piece appeared in the SAIS magazine in the Fall of 2016. It has been updated).
The topic of civility has been on my mind for several election cycles and indeed it was the topic of several of my opening of school letters during my times as an upper school head and head of school. As a school leader, I never felt inclined to support one party over another or one candidate over another publicly. However, I did feel called to assert that we must seek a higher bar for discourse in our country. The education of our nation’s children is the musculature of our democracy, and the example adults set for the education of our children is arguably its first pillar. It is an understatement to say we have been setting a poor cultural standard on this front.
Our 21st-century Presidential campaigns have created appalling moments, many of them–certainly too many to name. If this is business as usual, our business needs to change. If we enter into debates (not simply the debates we suffer through on television and social media, but any place where people debate charged topics) with only intent to speak, we will never hear, and we will find ourselves shouting. At some point in such an environment, the desire to win at any cost comes to dwarf the desire to tell the truth and to find the best answers to the challenges that face us.
We speak often of character education in our schools. We have appropriately high expectations regarding how to engage other people and how to be a part of a community together. I love the character education aspect of our work because fundamentally I believe that civility, humility, and kindness must be present to balance our passions, beliefs, and opinions. Our emphasis on this balance is vital and relevant in part because history teaches that it is never an easy thing to achieve AND very little can be accomplished without it. The sad truth in our political dialogue currently is its standards fall well below the basic expectations we should hold for our students.
Our nation has a long and mixed history of success in challenging debates. In the end, however, we have survived because our debates, at times after long enmity, have led to a recognition that we can and must be stronger as a result of each other rather than corroded by the presence of each other. In the end, we have been our best as a nation when we have been as willing to learn as we are to speak, teach, or preach. Too many voices, loud, shouting voices, like to tell us that it is a weakness to seek or try to engage in thoughtful dialogue. If it is a weakness, then the great statesmen and women of history, and specifically our national history, were weak. To assert that dialogue and civility are weak is as obscene as it is untrue. Most painfully, this assertion embraces despair as if it is a viable point of view. It is not.
The counter to despair is hope. Educators of all stripes must strive to bequeath hope to young people and provide them with the tools, skills, resilience, and habits of mind to embody it in the way they steward generations to come.