Why We Must Teach Our Students to Believe in America

T he 1619 Project is making its way into classrooms, and critical theory has captured our schools of education. It’s essential to refute the precepts and facts within these progressive theories and histories. I spend time disputing the philosophical roots of critical theory in education, and National Review has done much to contest the historical accuracy of the 1619 Project. 

Even so, these debates extend beyond esoteric squabbles to practical realities. As conservatives like to say, ideas have consequences. If the ideas within these radical projects — that America is built on racism, that our constitutional order is rotten to the core — a definitive consequence will be a country that lacks any resolve on the international stage. A country that doubts its own goodness will decline.

Every nation needs a mythos upon which it builds itself — not lies but a framing of its own history. When that mythos crumbles, the nation may follow. Examples abound in history. Yugoslavia, Austria-Hungary, and Czechoslovakia all broke up, in part, because they were multi-ethnic states that lacked a coherent national identity.

France at the onset of World War II is perhaps the most salient example of a country crumbling for a lack of resolve. In the interwar years, the French teachers’ union “purged” textbooks that depicted French military men favorably from schools, focusing instead on internationalism and pacifism. While France fought for four years in World War I, in World War II, it collapsed in six weeks under the pressure of the German invasion despite having what, by some calculations, should have been a superior military force. Thomas Sowell acknowledges that there are countless causes for this swift defeat, but he agrees with Charles de Gaulle when he writes that “an inner erosion of morale, patriotism, and resolution” was a major factor.

The invasion of Ukraine uniquely forewarns of such consequences at home. This conflict may not lead to our military involvement, but it reminds us that the international order is fragile. We might become entangled in a war again and currently do face countless non-military challenges; do we trust our public schools to produce citizens who are ready for that?

Our populace must have something worth defending if it is to defend itself. It is in our institutions of public education that our nation learns of its history and civics. It is here that our students will or will not develop the necessary national resolve. What story will we teach our children about ourselves?

During the Cold War, under Reagan’s administration, the National Commission on Excellence in Education wrote in the landmark report, A Nation at Risk, that “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” They considered discouraging math and literacy scores a crisis.

Academically, little has changed while the predominant ideology has only worsened: Pet theories of oppression and fringe ideas about race abound, as do arguments that equality before the law, objectivity, or even timeliness are tools of oppression. Our educational experts want us to teach our students that America is fundamentally broken, racist, and oppressive. They would have students investigating only current problems without learning of our heritage, literature, or constitutional order.

Such framings do not instill a national identity worth defending. Putin or any other authoritarian could not ask for a better ally on American soil than our own educational elite.

I spent a number of years teaching English as a second language, and a number of my students came from war-torn countries. Many had faced unspeakable horrors: fathers missing limbs, ravaged towns, murdered mothers. Even so, when asked about their homes, they spoke of the vistas, culture, language, food, and history. Almost all wanted to return home one day. They loved their country despite its flaws.

G. K. Chesterton provides an illustrative example of the necessity of patriotism in the Pimlico neighborhood of London, which he considered a dreadful place. Were a man to hate Pimlico, his only recourse would be to cut his throat or move away. However, were he to love the neighborhood as a mother loves her child — not necessarily because it is lovely, but because it is hers — he would seek its endurance and reform. Love our country, and we will defend it precisely because it is ours.

There is much to love in this country. The ideals set forth in our founding documents are pinnacles of political theory. Our culture, from Mark Twain to Miles Davis, can stand toe to toe with the Great Russian novelists and German composers. Our national parks showcase a diversity of geography unmatched in most other nations.

Again, this mythos-building doesn’t necessitate that we lie to our students. We can teach our students of America’s many failings while showcasing that our reformation has come about because of, not in spite of, our founding vision — that, for example, Confederate leaders rebuffed our founding documents while Frederick Douglass embraced them.

While the current crisis is unlikely to escalate into war involving our forces, at some point, America will again face a threat to its existence. Will we meet the challenge? I worry we won’t. No one will storm a beach to defend whatever our DEI consultants think America is.