Searching for America with Robyn Curnow

Back-to-school battles over ideas | Josh Clark


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We need to immerse kids in more ambiguity, says headteacher Josh Clark, who is also on the board of the National Association of Independent Schools. How do the divisions in America manifest in schools?

Is pressure to say the right thing and give the 'correct answer' stifling debate and critical thinking in classrooms? Why have kids lost the ability to put themselves in another person's shoes? Does simplification of complicated issues create less empathy?

Josh Clark's dad was a prison warder which meant Josh grew up in the warder's house inside a prison complex in Hopewell, Virginia. "My first friend in life was Nelson. Nelson was an inmate who worked in our yard. He smuggled cocaine into the country in a private plane in the 70s. I was seven. I thought he walked on water."

Growing up in the dynamic of the federal prison system gave Josh a perspective that informs his views on right, wrong, legal, illegal and the need to understand ambiguities and embrace complexity.

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Searching for America with Robyn CurnowBy Robyn Curnow, Bleav