Hackley’s Educational Mission Amidst Polarization

Upper School faculty and administrators tend to be confident about the resilience of school culture and its ability to maintain consistency and standards within a changing external context. Among the pillars of a Hackley educational experience are certain core principles and practices, among which are 1) the expectation of at least civility, if not friendship, within the community, 2) the importance of mastering facts and weaving them appropriately into arguments and conceptual understanding, and 3) a recognition of the benefits of multiple perspectives, whether derived from cultural and social background or divergence of opinion.
While the Contemporary Issues seminar and Government class clearly wade directly into questions of politics and forms and style of governing, the daily routines and course content at Hackley remain largely unchanged.

For certain disciplines, however, the onset of what some commentators have dubbed the “post-factual era” poses new challenges. History Department chair Bill Davies responds to the very notion of “alternative facts” with a dose of traditional medicine. “History,” he says, “is one of the disciplines that teaches students that, while it may be true that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, all opinions are not equal.”

While history is not a technical science, Mr. Davies argues, the discipline uses tools to distinguish legitimate facts from fictions or distortions. He observes, “Historical method is what separates the valid opinion from the invalid, and historical method is based in careful analysis of fact and chronology, analysis which ideally yields balance and nuance. This is why we are constantly challenging students to move beyond gut feeling and long-held assumptions to ask how and why a thesis is true.”

Beyond that, however, faculty find that today’s charged environment has altered accustomed forms of discourse, as debate now extends beyond issues of policy — disagreements over taxation, social programs, or foreign relations—to discussion of fundamental ethical principles at stake. Teachers who would, as a rule, keep personal political convictions out of the classroom are uncomfortable keeping silent on topics that bear on certain basic human values. English teacher Nicole Butterfield insists that her classroom must be a “space where everyone is welcome,” and reflects, “Test a few recent headlines against Hackley’s motto, ‘Enter here to be and find a friend,’ and I believe the role of teachers in our community becomes abundantly clear.” Hackley needs to maintain a clear firewall against negative stereotyping and scapegoating.

What about the experience of Upper School students? To what degree has political disagreement become a source of disharmony within peer relationships? As might be expected in Democratic-leaning Westchester County, a post-election Dial poll indicated that only 15% of students supported the Trump candidacy, yet the President’s supporters say they do not feel besieged. “Hackley kids are nice,” says senior Max Tannenbaum, a visible campus Republican who gets a ready audience with his peers. He is encouraged by what he perceives to be greater curiosity on campus. “As a rule, students will take the time to hear you out. However, by the end of a long Facebook chat at night, most people’s opinions are at the same place as where they started.”

Tucker van Eck ’17, last year’s elder statesman within Hackley Conservatives, shares Max’s assessment. “I have noticed a significant uptick in political interest and debates among members of the Hackley community—more so than during Obama’s Presidency or in the months leading up to Election Day.” And, he observes, even if other students disagree with the President’s policies, there is a general culture of civility. Senior Paul Lapey, this year’s co-president of Hackley Conservatives, concurs. “Students are generally pretty civil with each other when they discuss politics — even when they disagree.” Paul thinks that the issues that might trigger more heated discussion touch less on policy disagreement and more on issues of culture, race and identity.

In Tucker’s view, once a political debate breaks out, it can only go on for so long before the other person no longer wishes to continue the conversation. Sophomore Max Rosenblum, The Dial’s Deputy Politics Editor, notes that stronger opinions are typically reserved for dialogue between like-minded people. “People will be mostly polite in dialogue with their opponents, but when they speak or chat online with people who share their views, a harder or sharper edge comes out.”

So has the larger ideological divide in American society significantly altered student discourse? Members of the student community offer a mixed response. Aurora Straus ’17 observes, “Our generation’s propensity for online head-butting hasn’t changed, but the subject material has.” She notes, “Since the election, there’s definitely been a new level of unease among students. Most political infighting occurs, unfortunately, through social media platforms.”

Senior Alex Wenstrup suggests that student dependence on social media, where they experience a significant degree of confirmation bias, comes to overshadow the space formerly filled with robust debate. For Alex, the risk in today’s social media environment is not simply that people reinforce their own biases within their online feeds. He believes the problem is further magnified by the repetitive superficiality of what one reads. “Facebook, as a social media platform,” he observes, “is a place for people to share their opinions. What frustrates me, however, is when people use a 30 second clip from Now This or Buzzfeed as if that proves some sort of point.”

Students like him, he notes, also rely less and less on primary sources, instead consuming news from sources like The Daily Show. For example, he notes that students do not take the time to read the texts of important proposed legislation. “Yet we all seem to feel perfectly entitled to not only an opinion, but are also convinced that our opinion is right, despite our own pretty scant knowledge of the topic. All of this is reminding me how unbelievably polarized political debate has become now.”

Tucker echoes Alex’s observation. “People are taking the time to be well-informed, although I fear that students—including myself at times—are reading sites that do not present political issues objectively. People only read articles that support their ideas.”
Sarah Lucente ’17 reflects, “After the election, it seems to me that variability of opinion, even liberal opinion, is increasingly difficult to voice without judgment.” This concerns her, as it seems more important now than ever to open the conversation. “I don’t think this has happened as much as it could have since the election.” She argues that an important element to civilized discussion is to avoid drawing hasty negative conclusions about another person’s deeper motives and attitudes. “I think we just have to listen more and try to understand where the other side is coming from.”

Aurora believes that the current historical moment, for all of its uncertainty, has yielded positive results. “Students are more engaged in politics—and riled up enough to want to run themselves—than ever before.” She acknowledges the twin challenges of increased polarization along with greater apathy. “Despite the palpable tension, though, I do think the election has started an important conversation.”

All of which, evidently, circles back to Bill Davies’ point. The purpose of a solid education is not to inculcate a particular viewpoint, but to develop criteria for determining how to assess the factual validity of competing truth claims. The challenge for Hackley, therefore, is not to stake out positions on particular points of policy, but to instead challenge students to be able to distinguish viable, robust, fact-based argumentation and truth claims from ones that are fabricated and easily disproved.

Vladimir Klimenko, member of the Hackley History department since 2005, teaches American History through 1900, Contemporary Issues, and Modern European History. He is the parent of a member of the Class of 2012.