“As a school community, we have an obligation to help our students learn, grow, and create, as opposed to parrot, memorize, and blindly comply,” wrote Head of School Dan Frank in the introduction to his new white paper, Civil Discourse at The Steward School. 

One critical element of students’ personal and academic development is the capacity to explore challenging ideas. Mr. Frank explains that students must be guided by faculty to navigate complex conversations successfully in order to fulfill our mission (Prepare our students for college and for life in a community defined by robust academics, inspiration, engagement, and care).

However, nationwide, our fractured information landscape does not lend itself to civil discourse. Yet, the practice has never been more important. 

“Social media, cable television, blog posts, podcasts, and the like have democratized opinion,” he writes. “Still, at the same time, they have anatomized and bubbled the lenses through which we see and access the world. Encountering predominantly one-sided and filtered content causes us to make rapid judgments with little context and even less countering data. This leads us to dismiss other points of view, beliefs, and values, if we are even aware they exist. People and viewpoints outside our bubble are simply other.”

In a letter introducing the white paper to the school community, Mr. Frank points out that at Steward, we are fortunate that our culture and disposition are ideally and uniquely suited to practice civility and civil discourse. 

He wrote: “As a community, we lean into each other, respect each other, and help each other understand that each of us matters. These are our abiding characteristics. That is who we are. And, in order to embody this ethos, we must also be intentional about the ‘how.’”

Mr. Frank references a paper from the National Association of Independent Schools and the E.E. Ford Foundation that highlights three dispositions (expressive freedom, disciplined nonpartisanship, and intellectual diversity) that are required for “Thriving in a World of Pluralistic Contention.” He provides an overview of current Steward programming that encourages civil discourse, outlines tangible tools, and offers future considerations. He concludes with an invitation for conversation and a final thought: “In an intentional community, we must have the hard conversations; it brings authenticity and trust to the culture.”