June 26, 2013

FINEST HOUR 132, AUTUMN 2006

BY SUZANNE SIGMAN

Ms. Sigman is The Churchll Centre’s educational outreach coordinator

ABSTRACT
TWENTY-NINE AMERICAN TEACHERS devoted two weeks of their lives to furthering The Churchill centre’s mission of teaching the next generation about Winston Churchill, thanks to the Ashbrook Center and a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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The Churchill Centre’s most ambitious outreach to high school teachers occurred this summer, when Professors James Muller, chairman of the Centre’s Board of Academic Advisors (University of Alaska, Anchorage) and Justin Lyons (Ashland University) co-directed the Summer Institute at the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs in Ashland, Ohio.

American tax dollars funded a $94,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities so teachers could attend this institute free of charge, and receive a small stipend as well. The grant covered eight books, instruction, educational materials, room, board and transportation. The Centre hosted a dinner where John Ramsden spoke on “Churchill’s Postwar Reputation.” Other academics and guest instructors included Allen Packwood (Director, Churchill Archives Centre), CC Fellow Steve Hayward (American Enterprise Institute) and academic adviser Jeffrey Wallin (American Academy of Liberal Education), Peter Schramm (Executive Director, Ashbrook Center) and John Moser (Ashland University).

Teachers represented thirteen states from California to Virginia, Texas to Minnesota. They teach history, English, government and ethics from elementary to high school pupils.

We had a schedule of Churchillian proportions, with instructional sessions from 9am until noon, followed by lunch and free time until tea at 4pm. A final one-hour academic session preceded dinner. Then followed the screening of an episode from the television documentary The Wilderness Years (starring Robert Hardy as WSC), with a discussion. Some nights featured a dinner lecture as well. By 9:30pm our heads and hearts were full of Winston Churchill.

Grappling with the overwhelming Churchill oeuvre in two weeks necessitated a focus. The Institute was designed as an inquiry into “Churchill and America”: a careful examination of how Churchill came to be the man he was, and of the political principles that motivated him. From Pericles to Magna Carta, to the American founding to Churchill, a clear lineage was mapped out.

Session 1 each day comprised a close reading and discussion of three chapters from My Early Life. After placing the chapters in their historical context and explaining unfamiliar terms, Professor Muller considered some of the important questions raised by the reading. Discussion ensued on the book’s great themes of death, the human condition, religion, luck, privilege, empire, colonialism, war, peace, free will, progress, leaders, education, history, politics and risk.

The second sessions were largely devoted to analyses of Churchill’s historical and political thought. Lectures included the ideas of Thucydides, Pericles, and Aristotle, examining the nature and nuances of historical interpretation and the roots of democratic thought and institutions in Britain and America. Professor Lyons compared Churchill’s understanding of history to that of “professional historians,” who are “often ill at ease reading Churchill.” Remember that in his preface to The Second World War, Churchill wrote, “I do not describe it as history, for that belongs to another generation. But I claim with confidence that it is a contribution to history which will be of service to the future.”

History is not philosophy; it belongs to the world of change. While the passing of time will often alter our perception of past events (history), Churchill’s knowledge of events is from the viewpoint of the highest political man at a particular time—and this will not change.

Professor Lyons believes that Churchill’s political thought has been neglected, although general biographies of him proliferate. He did what he could in the short time allotted to alter the ratio!

Reading and discussing The Great Republic (the recent collection of WSC’s articles on America, compiled by his grandson), and other speeches and essays, comprised the major afternoon sessions. Any Churchillian would be proud of the inquiring nature and intellectual fervor of the teachers as they grappled critically with the large questions Churchill poses, many learning to appreciate him in new ways. Perhaps most relevant to 2006 is Churchill’s belief that democratic institutions are fragile and will always be challenged by the nature of the human condition. In Professor Lyons’ words, “Churchill combined a devotion to democracy with an awareness of its shortcomings.”

The teachers cast a critical eye:

Was war a sport for most British officers? How accurate is Churchill’s description of his own grace under fire? Were there any witnesses? Did he not see before 1940 that the French army was obsolete? Churchill writes [Great Republic 225]:“Fraud, extravagance and a humiliating racial policy were imposed upon the South by Radical rule [between 1868 and 1891].” I find this statement indefensible.

To what purpose was the Boer War? It rings hollow with me. Didn’t he sometimes suffer from an over-confidence in the force of his own personality?

Did he ever talk about cowardice?

Teachers’ observations were also of considerable interest:

Churchill is an odd combination of a man, rooted in the past.” He advises “seizing the day, “yet looks to the future; he bridges time. He believes in rules but he is a rule breaker. He examines the details and at the same time he could see the big picture.

Do we suffer from “post-modern paralysis”? Churchill can see other points of view, but in the end he can distinguish evil.

Is Churchill wired differently? He thinks militarily. The study of history [today] has done away with this element. We have demilitarized history.

George Washington also exuded a sense of calm in battle. Would a bullet in the right place have ended the Revolution?

Would we have changed anything? You bet! We learned much. Why didn’t we ask John Ramsden to deliver a lecture on British politics and government? Why didn’t we have a significant session on World War II —the one topic almost all history teachers teach? Why didn’t we incorporate a bit more variety in pedagogical method, especially in the second week, using small group discussions, for example? And yes, it would have been splendid to have a field trip to Chartwell and the Churchill Museum. Next time! By the way, our host institution, Ashland University, received the highest marks, without exception.

Because this article is in Finest Hour, a journal largely read by those who often call Churchill “The Great Man”—even while recognizing that he was not a perfect human being nor infallible—I will end with a verbatim remark from a Michigan teacher: “I always knew he was an important man, but after all this reading, I can say I almost love him.”