The Difference Between Political and Partisan
Schools today sometimes fall in for criticism for being “political,” with an inevitable contrast with schools of the past, which are asserted to have been free of politics. But this is simply not the case. A non-political school would be one that had no conception of virtue, no vision of ethics, no capacity for helping its participants learn to live in the world among other people. All schools are political places, in the sense that they engage with values, and this is a decidedly good thing.
When schools are criticized for being political, I think what is most often intended is an assertion that schools have been partisan–that is, intentionally promoting fidelity to a party or faction within American political life. This is an important distinction, and one which we at Browning want to endorse; indeed, it is not our project to create Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, or any other kind of partisan membership. As a school, however, Browning is inevitably in the business of cultivating values–honesty, curiosity, dignity, and purpose among them–and these values are going to intersect with the questions, opinions, and complex emotions that students bring to school with them every day.
Our boys are living through a complicated period in our nation’s history, one which is often polarized around competing conceptions of public health and safety, interpretations of justice and racial equity, worries about economic security and scarcity, and meanings of liberty and community. And this polarization, of course, is exacerbated by the cynicism, emotionality, and coarseness of both our contemporary media climate and our electoral politics. This is all surely disorienting for young people who are attempting to develop their own authentic voices and political identities. Given these fraught times and the models they encounter, our boys may come to conflate civic discourse with partisan rancor, and assume that politics are simply an arena for invective and irrationality, where partisan will overwhelms public good.
“It is not our place to guide boys to partisan conclusions, but it is absolutely our responsibility to insist upon discursive conditions congruent with our mission and values.”
Healthy democratic citizenship cannot thrive where such acrimonious qualities have displaced reasoned dialogue, belief in shared understanding, and the sincere regard for others. Neither can a school community–and it’s in this sense that Browning must be political. It is not our place to guide boys to partisan conclusions, but it is absolutely our responsibility to insist upon discursive conditions congruent with our mission and values. This means encouraging critical thinking and the free exchange of ideas, to be sure, yet also demands ensuring that such intellectual work rests upon a foundation of mutual respect, inclusion, and sincerity, one which enables all community members to thrive. From Kindergarten to Grade 12, we want our boys who engage with our contemporary political moment to have the liberty to ask questions, to share their considered opinions, to make mistakes, and to disagree–but all within the required context of interpersonal empathy, shared awareness, and respect for the inherent worth of all members of our community.
There can be no wishing away the challenges of our times, and these challenges will necessarily manifest themselves in our political conversations, movements, and activities. As a school that calls its boys to contribute meaningfully to our world, we cannot sequester them from this reality and this responsibility. What we can and must do, however, is create a deliberate environment where boys can present reasoned support for their current ideas, seek engagement with other perspectives, give compassion and respect to all involved, and ultimately articulate a more refined, more sophisticated sense of political understanding and identity than they once had. This is what it means to live according to the values of honesty, curiosity, dignity, and purpose; this is how engaging with the political allows Browning to live its mission.