Good Teachers Need to Become Good at Teaching

There is a troubling irony in education. Teachers who are adept at stimulating thoughtfulness and creating learning opportunities for students in the classroom frequently struggle to use those same skills to teach the public at large.

For the teacher who immediately responded to this assertion by saying to him or herself, “Yeah, but who am I to teach the public anything?,” I’d like tell you in a few short statements.

Propaganda literally means to propagate something: a message, an idea, or an opportunity.

There is no world where propaganda does not exist and propaganda is nothing more than teaching the public what they should believe, what they should feel, and what they should do with those beliefs and feelings.

Furthermore, there is no shortage of bad propaganda: sophistry and bad philosophy. Edward Bernays rightfully noted,

Propaganda will never die out. Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help bring order out of chaos.

In other words, propaganda is the way of the modern democratic world. Everyone has an opinion and access to propaganda machines on which they can propagate their ideas to the masses. It is a noisy world but some have been better than others at transcending the noise and getting their message heard.

C. S. Lewis wisely noted, “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy must be answered.”

I contend that Classical Christian teachers need to become very good at propaganda because successful propagandists are merely good teachers who are good at teaching.

Teachers need to be good at teaching, not only in the classroom but in the public square as well.

If a teacher is good for the classroom, he or she is good for the public square.