Teaching the American Dream:
A Myth We Should Want Our Children to Believe In
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”
-Helen Keller
When I began my career as an elementary school teacher over fifteen years ago, the American Dream was a common subject of class discussion. Its relevance to topics such as civics or character development was clear and intuitive. We want our children to believe that they live in a meritocracy—that their decisions matter and that they will be able to accomplish their dreams if they work hard enough. We want them to be hard working, optimistic, resilient, confident, and hopeful. We want these things for our children because such traits will benefit them, which should be the fundamental goal of all education. Unfortunately, since the tumultuous events of 2020, it has become trendy for some elementary educators to attempt to correct America’s flaws in their classrooms instead of focusing on the development of their individual students. In the process, the American Dream has fallen by the wayside. Deconstructed and dismissed as just one more debunked myth. This is a shame. The American Dream may be a myth, but it is the type of myth we should want our children to believe in.
Children, particularly young ones, are literal thinkers who frame their understandings in narrative terms. This is why we have always transmitted values and strategies for success to our children through myths and stories. To teach children about the value of planning ahead and delaying gratification, a teacher might read the fable of the ant, who saved food all summer, and the grasshopper, who played instead and was hungry when winter came. Whether the story is “true” isn’t the point, it’s valuable because it provides a narrative framework for children to learn a lesson that they can apply to their own lives—which then reinforces social-emotional instruction regarding strategies for success.
In my classroom the American Dream served a similar purpose. It was a narrative setting that justified my students’ efforts to improve themselves. When I told them that they lived in a place where everyone is free to pursue their dreams and rise to the level of their merits, it not only instilled a sense of pride and community, but also encouraged them to believe that they were capable of anything if they tried hard enough.
I’m not sure how well such lessons would be received today. Since I left the classroom, the fundamental American narrative seems to have shifted from “the land of freedom and opportunity” to the land of the rigged or broken systems. Issues such as systemic inequities, school safety, and overly-expensive medical and education systems have dominated our national discourse and highlighted the many obstacles which can interfere with our youth’s pursuit of good and fulfilling lives. Such issues warrant national debate, and call into question whether the American Dream is “true.” As a result, some educators have begun to focus their instruction on societal transformation, teaching children that they are obligated to make America more equitable, instead of focusing on developmentally appropriate goals for young students.
This is a mistake. Addressing our country’s flaws is not a job any child should have to take on. That’s the responsibility of adults—and, if we’re being honest, it's a slog. It’s slow going, and often seems beyond our capacity, let alone the capacity of any child. If we teach our children that they are obligated to change the world in order to have a good life, when we, as adults, can’t even manage that ourselves, we invite them to learn that they are powerless. We shouldn’t want that for them. We should want them to learn that they are strong, that they are the heroes of their own stories, and equip them to take the world as it comes. Teaching young children to believe in the American Dream facilitates those goals.
I. Belief in the American Dream Benefits Children
“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt
As an elementary school teacher, teaching the American Dream supported one of my overarching goals for every student that walked into my classroom—to help them understand the link between their actions and outcomes so that they could learn to make wise decisions. That trait, which is referred to by developmental psychologists as an internal locus of control (“LOC”), is correlated with success both in school and later in life, for reasons that are intuitive once that trait (and its alternative) are unpacked.
As defined by the American Psychological Association:
“People with an internal locus of control tend to behave in response to internal states and intentions and to perceive their life outcomes as arising from the exercise of their own agency and abilities;” whereas
“People with an external locus of control tend to behave in response to external circumstances and to perceive their life outcomes as arising from factors out of their control.”
It should come as no surprise that students who believe that their actions are the cause of the outcomes impacting their lives make better and more thoughtful decisions than students who blame external events for their failures. Teachers see this play out in their classrooms every day.
Imagine two students, both of whom are struggling to learn to read. The student with an internal LOC is likely to be receptive to suggestions about how they can improve. Such students see their failures (and successes) as manifestations of their actions, and therefore are typically both more introspective and more willing to change their actions in order to improve. The student with an external LOC often blames the situation instead. The test was unfair, other kids were distracting him, or he was just unlucky. Focusing on external factors, such students have a harder time taking responsibility for their choices, and as a result often fail to correct their mistakes. It should come as no surprise that the first type of student tends to improve more rapidly than the second.
Moreover, an internal LOC prepares students for the realities of life in the United States. America is an individualistic society—we are judged on our accomplishments and expected to strive to build the life that we want. People who internalize that lesson early are more likely to thrive, and also more likely to feel a connection to the values and merits of our culture.
For all these reasons, fostering an internal LOC in students is a worthy goal for any educator—but it isn’t an easy thing to do. The reality is that children have limited control over many aspects of their lives, which naturally cuts against their sense of personal agency. To foster an internal LOC despite such challenges, educators employ a number of strategies. Lessons on character development focus on providing examples of positive traits that the children can emulate. Social emotional learning provides strategies children can employ to facilitate their growth. Belief in the American Dream provides narrative support for such educational paradigms.
Children are obsessed with fairness. They want to know that their efforts will be rewarded, and that the system is “fair.” At its core, the American Dream is nothing more than an assurance that American meritocracy is at least fair enough that children can reasonably expect their choices will matter, and that their efforts will be rewarded. If they believe that, then they will have every reason to take responsibility for themselves, and make wise choices. On the other hand, if we teach them that the system is so unfair or corrupt that their choices may not matter, then we are actively encouraging them to focus on forces beyond their control and to develop an external LOC.
II. The American Dream is True Enough
“I have one major rule: Everybody is right. More specifically, everybody — including me — has some important pieces of truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace.”
-Ken Wilber
If you’ve stuck with me this far, you probably fall into one of two camps. Hopefully some of you are on board, and understand why teaching children to believe in the American Dream benefits them. Others, however, are probably yelling at their screens, frustrated that I would advocate for teaching children something that they believe isn’t true. I empathize with that frustration, but it is misplaced.
Over the course of my life, I have held each of the following perspectives on the American Dream at one time or another:
The American Dream is true. There are myriad examples of people who—through hard work, wise decisions and applied talent—overcame difficult circumstances to rise to great success in America. The playing field may not be perfectly level, but everyone has equal opportunity to play the capitalist game.
The American Dream is false. While we theoretically all have equal opportunity in this country, in reality many of us are starting off at a marked disadvantage due to systemic inequities. The myth of the American Dream is therefore a fundamental obstacle to progress and creates a moral hazard—tempting us to inappropriately blame victims of difficult circumstances for their ill fortune.
The American Dream is true because it is a fundamental part of what unites us as Americans. America is the shining city on the hill, an example for the world of democracy, opportunity and freedom. Faith in the American Dream is part and parcel of who we are as a people.
The American Dream is false. Cultural myths of this type are artifacts of historic power dynamics in society. Accordingly, the American Dream is best understood as a type of Alergian propaganda designed to maintain the status quo of the powerful and which should be discarded.
All of these perspectives contain a germ of truth worth knowing, despite their contradictions—and none of them are worth fixating on to the exclusion of all others. Moreover, none of them answer the fundamental question at the heart of all educational practices: What can I do to advantage the child in front on me?
“Metaphorically true just means it’s a belief that provides you an advantage.”
-Bret Weinstein
From that perspective, the American Dream is true enough. Certainly, teaching children to believe in it provides them with an advantage, which should settle the question.
That said, I’m sure there will be skeptics who are unconvinced by my arguments. I invite them to consider their motivations for doing so. Perhaps they feel that America is inequitable, and so want to rectify those inequities in their classrooms. That is certainly the push behind the recent rise of Transformative Social Emotional Learning, which seeks to facilitate student development only “insofar as it contributes to social justice ends.” There may be other educators who would prefer that America was a collectivist culture, rather than an individualistic one, and decline to teach the American Dream because they want to use their classrooms to reshape America. I ask such educators to consider whether their personal political views justify sacrificing something that would benefit their students—and how one could ever justify an educational philosophy that was based on any value other than maximizing the development of the children in front of you.
Elementary classrooms are just the starting point of our student’s journeys. Along the way, their views will shift and evolve. Mine certainly have. But none of that changes our fundamental obligation to do everything we can to advantage our students. You may believe that the American Dream is a myth, but it is the kind of myth we should want our children to believe in.
-Ryan C. Mullally
Educator, Lawyer, Husband, Father
Many thanks to Ken Wilber, Bret Weinstein, Jason Littlefield and Free Black Thought for the inspiration.
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