I spent the last 19 years of my teaching career teaching American history at an independent elementary school in NYC. The school had a Grandparents Day in April, and every year I would use that day for a discussion of Lincoln’s address with the kids and their grandparents, even the day that one of the grandparents was a published expert on Lincoln (although I had my heart in my throat the whole time).
In preparation, I would always ask the kids to be able to tell me as well as they could what was in the address, and what, that they might have expected to be, was not. And I always asked for volunteers to read it at the beginning of the class (in all honesty that was not because I wouldn’t have preferred to do it myself, but because I knew I would not be able to get through it without choking up).
The thing I always wanted the kids to notice was that although he was speaking as the Commander in Chief of the victorious Union army, Lincoln never referred to North or South. He never did what most who came to hear Everett (and Lincoln if they were aware that he was coming) would have expected, the leader of the winning army extolling his side’s victory.
What I was always hoping for, but did not always get, was some kid seeing what Dr. Smith notes, that this was not a coach praising his team, but the President of all Americans describing a very loud, very violent argument (which is, of course want war is) to decide what American was going to be.
Finally, I would ask them who Lincoln was talking to. And there was always at least one who replied something like, “Us, through all the ages to come”.
When I was in second grade I was one of several kids who memorized the Gettysburg Address, and they had us go around from class to class reciting it. We weren't asked what it meant or what we thought of it, just to rote-repeat the sacred words.
How different your approach was. And whatever legitimate criticisms can be made of education these days, that's an important improvement.
So the 1619 Project, as I understand it, set itself up in direct contradiction to pretty much everything that Lincoln was trying to accomplish with the Gettysburg Address? And the NYT put its full institutional weight behind the effort to elevate the ideas of Nikole Hannah Jones (a leftist antiracist) above those of one of the greatest statesmen and orators in history? And the pulitzers decided to reward those efforts with a prize? And schools across our country decided to jump in on that act and promote the "progressive" idea that our country's founding and history should all be viewed primarily if not entirely through the lens of race and so-called systemic racism? ok good to know thanks.
"A self-evident truth is true by definition of its terms alone." - FALSE, there are synthetic a priori truths, i.e., truths that are self-evident but not by definition, nor true by empirical experience.
And if "all men are created equal" is self-evident, it is most certainly not true analytically (as a result of the meaning of the terms), nor by empirical experience (something verifiable via the scientific method).
I spent the last 19 years of my teaching career teaching American history at an independent elementary school in NYC. The school had a Grandparents Day in April, and every year I would use that day for a discussion of Lincoln’s address with the kids and their grandparents, even the day that one of the grandparents was a published expert on Lincoln (although I had my heart in my throat the whole time).
In preparation, I would always ask the kids to be able to tell me as well as they could what was in the address, and what, that they might have expected to be, was not. And I always asked for volunteers to read it at the beginning of the class (in all honesty that was not because I wouldn’t have preferred to do it myself, but because I knew I would not be able to get through it without choking up).
The thing I always wanted the kids to notice was that although he was speaking as the Commander in Chief of the victorious Union army, Lincoln never referred to North or South. He never did what most who came to hear Everett (and Lincoln if they were aware that he was coming) would have expected, the leader of the winning army extolling his side’s victory.
What I was always hoping for, but did not always get, was some kid seeing what Dr. Smith notes, that this was not a coach praising his team, but the President of all Americans describing a very loud, very violent argument (which is, of course want war is) to decide what American was going to be.
Finally, I would ask them who Lincoln was talking to. And there was always at least one who replied something like, “Us, through all the ages to come”.
When I was in second grade I was one of several kids who memorized the Gettysburg Address, and they had us go around from class to class reciting it. We weren't asked what it meant or what we thought of it, just to rote-repeat the sacred words.
How different your approach was. And whatever legitimate criticisms can be made of education these days, that's an important improvement.
It would be an awful lot to ask of a second grader to analyze Lincoln’s words.
Maybe so.
This is a superb reflection. Thank you.
Magnificent piece.
So the 1619 Project, as I understand it, set itself up in direct contradiction to pretty much everything that Lincoln was trying to accomplish with the Gettysburg Address? And the NYT put its full institutional weight behind the effort to elevate the ideas of Nikole Hannah Jones (a leftist antiracist) above those of one of the greatest statesmen and orators in history? And the pulitzers decided to reward those efforts with a prize? And schools across our country decided to jump in on that act and promote the "progressive" idea that our country's founding and history should all be viewed primarily if not entirely through the lens of race and so-called systemic racism? ok good to know thanks.
"A self-evident truth is true by definition of its terms alone." - FALSE, there are synthetic a priori truths, i.e., truths that are self-evident but not by definition, nor true by empirical experience.
And if "all men are created equal" is self-evident, it is most certainly not true analytically (as a result of the meaning of the terms), nor by empirical experience (something verifiable via the scientific method).