👉 A recent conversation and a powerful campus story reveal the same deeper concern: our students may not be failing — our institutions might be, as academia isn’t just polarized, it’s forgetting how to teach.
Two voices — historian Gil Troy and journalist Haviv Rettig-Gur — recently described what feels like the same crisis from different angles. One speaks from inside the classroom. The other from a disrupted campus lecture.
But the message overlaps in a striking way:
👉 Academia isn’t only facing political tension. It’s facing a deeper failure of purpose — a moment where education risks losing its balance.
As Gil Troy put it:
💬 “This isn’t an issue of right or left. It’s an issue of educational malpractice.”
The concern isn’t that ideas are debated. Universities are meant to challenge thinking. The concern is when the purpose of education shifts — when “the holy podium of the classroom” becomes a political platform rather than a place for inquiry, nuance, and learning.
Many frameworks that began with good intentions of empathy, justice and inclusion. They risk becoming what Troy called “good ideas with all accelerator, no brakes.”
When ideology replaces curiosity, students stop exploring and start performing. Adults stop doing the hard work of guiding them through complexity.
And this is where Rettig-Gur’s experience brings the picture into focus.
At a recent campus talk, as he writes about it here, Rettig-Gut encountered masked protesters, not as hardened ideologues, but as what he described as “intellectually and emotionally neglected children.” Once challenged seriously, many stayed, listened, and even became emotional.
The moment revealed something deeper than political disagreement:
👉 Not ideological extremism — intellectual neglect.
The real crisis isn’t that students are angry.
It’s that too many institutions stopped believing students were strong enough to be challenged and too many educators stepped back from their role as teachers.
In his article, Rettig-Gur compared the encounter to parenting: When a child lashes out, it can be less about hate and more about a longing to be seen, guided, and taken seriously. That insight connects directly to Troy’s warning: when educators avoid rigor or replace learning with activism, they don’t protect students — they abandon them.
These two thinkers are describing the same breakdown:
• Students hungry for depth but handed slogans
• Adults avoiding discomfort instead of teaching resilience
• Classrooms shifting from places of learning into stages of performance
• Education drifting from proportion toward reaction
The impact reaches far beyond campus:
• Students feel pressured into rigid narratives
• Parents wonder where critical thinking went
• Complex conversations collapse into sound bites
This isn’t about silencing debate. It’s about restoring balance — where disagreement builds growth, where multiple truths can exist, and where education shapes thinkers, not followers.
As Troy reminded us:
💬 “When I hijack the holy podium of the classroom and turn it into a political platform, I’ve crossed red lines.”
And as Rettig-Gur wrote:
💬 “Teach your children, America… If only their teachers believed in them enough to actually teach.”
At BCTC, we believe real education happens when people sit together, across differences, and ask honest questions without fear. The goal isn’t conformity. It’s clarity.
If academia is to regain trust, it must return to its core mission:
not shaping ideology, but shaping minds.
What we are witnessing may not simply be polarization, but a quiet form of educational malpractice — when classrooms stop challenging students and begin affirming only one narrative, protecting them from complexity instead of preparing them to engage with it.
👉 Call to Action
If this resonates with you, as an educator, parent, student, or community partner, we invite you to step into the conversation with us. Let’s move beyond slogans and rebuild spaces where curiosity, challenge, and respectful dialogue are possible again. Join a BCTC conversation, share this perspective with your community, and help us create learning environments that prepare people not just to react but to think.
#BCTC #CivilDiscourse #EducationMatters #CommunityConversation
About the speakers referenced above
Haviv Rettig-Gur
Israeli journalist and senior analyst at The Times of Israel, Haviv Rettig-Gur focuses on Israeli society, politics, and Jewish identity. Known for his clear, historical framing of current events, he speaks internationally about media narratives, democracy, and the challenges facing Western societies.
Gil Troy
Historian, presidential scholar, and author, Gil Troy is a Distinguished Scholar of North American History at McGill University and a frequent commentator on Zionism, education, and civic culture. His work explores identity, moral leadership, and the role of education in sustaining democratic values.
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