Whenever I teach something, I always start with the same question: Why should you care? Because I hate being an authoritarian and demanding that people learn things they don't want to know.
Last week I started teaching current events to a bright, home-schooled 13-year-old. So that's where I had to begin: Why should he care about the news? Why should anybody?
Lots of people don't, and they get by just fine. Lots who do, do it so badly that they probably shouldn't. To them, the news is just one more reason to get depressed or angry or to feel superior to the uninformed masses. They get mad at President Obama instead of their boss, or worry more about some missing girl in Wyoming than about their own kids. For some, the news is an addiction, a bad habit like smoking. Why should a teen-ager start?
Here's why: In a democracy, the People are sovereign -- the People have replaced the King. That means that each of us, in our own small way, is King. All of our children are heirs to the throne. "So I'm training you to be King," I told my student. "What kind of King do you want to be? What information will you need if you're going to be that kind of King? That's what news is."
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