Educating students and teachers about American conservatism

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Dear John,

When I talk to students about why they want to attend a Piety Hill program, they most often say something like, “because we want to learn about American conservatism and where better to explore conservative ideas and practices than at the home of the conservative mind.”

Teaching the American conservative tradition is a recurring obligation as each new generation is faced with the task of understanding America, its place in the arc of Western Civilization, and the many dimensions of the conservative experience within it. This educational mission is particularly imperative in our time. And so this summer the Kirk Center has held eight programs aimed at exploring conservative thought, past and present.

Engaging the Rising Generation at the Kirk Center

Each summer, the Acton Institute sends its interns to the Kirk Center for an educational retreat. This summer’s topic was “Dimensions of Contemporary Conservatism,” with the morning focused on conservative approaches to history and what America's founders took from a range of historical experiences in creating a constitutional republic aimed at reconciling the claims of order and liberty.

In the afternoon the discussion moved to the more contemporary overview of what conservatives have made of that great American mission of securing ordered liberty, and what some of the current emphases and challenges are. Dr. Wesley Reynold, Director of the Center’s Residential Fellowship Program, and Dr. Ben Peterson of Abilene Christian University led this year’s intellectual retreat. The student participants reported:

I found my time spent at the Kirk Center to benefit me by equipping me with more terms and tools to communicate that which I already believe.
Both seminars were valuable and helped me think more clearly about the history of the American founding ideas as well as the building blocks of the conservative lens. Also, lively presenters and discussion!
I found it valuable – helped me to understand Kirk’s ideas in more tangible ways. The list of conservative principles was helpful.

I am grateful to the leadership and program directors of the Acton Institute for entrusting a part of their interns’ educational experience to the Kirk Center. It is a privilege, as well as enjoyable for us as their students are so intelligent, lively, and respectful.

Historian George Nash and Bookman Editor Luke Sheahan Explore the Nature and History of American Conservatism

The Kirk Center hosted the foremost historian of modern intellectual conservatism, Dr. George H. Nash, and new University Bookman editor, Dr. Luke Sheahan, for another day’s exploration of the meaning of American conservatism, yesterday and today, for forty friends of the Center. For many, it was an opportunity to experience for themselves the kind of education students encounter at our core programs.

As one attendee put it: “To meet like-minded people made me very happy. Isolation for two years impacted me a lot. Now I have some hope. Thank you very much!” While another found it a “Thought-provoking and rewarding seminar and an introduction to the Center.”

Pillars of American Order Conference Equips History Teachers

Finally, I share with you news that our second Pillars of American Order seminar for high school teachers concluded a couple of weeks ago and was just as enthusiastically received as our inaugural seminar. Twenty participants discussed The Roots of American Order together guided by the seminar’s faculty Dr. Michael Federici of Middle Tennessee State University, Dr. Susan Hanssen of The University of Dallas, Dr. Jeff Polet and Mr. Gleaves Whitney of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation. The Gerald R. Ford Foundation was also a co-sponsor of the seminar.

The teachers also enjoyed a special presentation by Michael Kanis on the meaning of the Great Seal of the United States. Author of the book, The Hidden Secret of the Great Seal: How Foundational Truth from the Dawn of Liberty May Rescue a Republic in Peril, Mr. Kanis provided a wonderfully rich and practical application for teachers to consider as they seek to inspire their students to make the American tradition of ordered liberty their own.

Teachers especially ranked the experience of being at the Kirk Center itself, as opposed to other conference location options, as being a significant part of the magic they experienced. The seminar was deemed both educationally enriching and of genuine classroom benefit. Some of the feedback included:

The Pillars conference was like a retreat for American history teachers. The Socratic seminars were invigorating, and the social events with fellow teachers and leading scholars were motivating. Being in this sort of environment with like-minded individuals is all too rare, so I greatly appreciated this opportunity.
It was a wonderful experience. I’m excited to share some of this knowledge with my students.
I certainly feel that I have grown in my understanding of the American order, and this will make me a better teacher.
I think the idea of the American founding being a revolution prevented not made is critical to a proper understanding of the country. The conference helped me solidify how to explain that to my students in a clear manner.

These programs at the Russell Kirk Center show that the tradition of American conservatism, non-dogmatic and imaginative, that Russell Kirk mediated for us has just as important and rich a future as it does a past.

I want to encourage you to visit our website and especially its Classic Kirk section, which is regularly populated with the best of Kirk’s essays, reviews, columns, and introductions, and curated by Cecilia Kirk Nelson.

Most recently, Cecilia posted, “The Shoulders of Giants” in response to a Japanese publisher who wrote to us requesting permission to reprint it from Kirk’s book, Enemies of the Permanent Things. It will appear in Japan as part of a forthcoming English classroom workbook used to prepare for university entrance exams.

One wonders if the aphorism to stand “on the shoulders of Giants” still holds true in our time of rapid technological and societal change? In this piece, Kirk contends that, “Gothic architecture in the eleventh century could not have existed without its foundations in the ninth and tenth centuries—or, for that matter, in the architecture of ancient Syria. Atomic physics in our sense could not have come into being without the speculative spirit of the seventeenth century—or, for that matter, without the intuitions of the pre-Socratic Greeks. Our civilization is an immense continuity and essence.”

The next issue of Permanent Things, the Center’s twice-yearly newsletter, will be mailed out in October. If you don’t currently receive it, you may sign up on the website here or simply by emailing [email protected]. (Note that we do not sell our mailing list so you’ll not receive unwanted materials.)

Also, please note that the Center’s office phone number has changed to 616-726-0195. The prior phone number will remain in use for Annette Kirk and the Piety Hill house line directly.

Yours in the tradition of ordered liberty,

Jeffrey O. Nelson
Executive Director & CEO

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