HOW TO KEEP TEENAGERS FROM READING AYN RAND

The Ayn Rand Institute created a guide book for high school teachers who want to bring Anthem into their classroom as an assigned reading. I can think of no better way to make sure that no one who deserves to read it actually will. 

Appendix: Teaching Anthem: A Guide for High School and University Teachers

Lindsay Joseph -- February 16, 2024 -- 24 min read

How can we help students understand Anthem with greater depth and clarity?

https://newideal.aynrand.org/appendix-teaching-anthem-a-guide-for-high-school-and-university-teachers/

“This essay is intended as a guide for teachers as they help their students understand Anthem with greater depth and clarity.

“Once students have achieved an integrated understanding of Anthem, they should be encouraged to relate their newfound knowledge to the world around them. Their knowledge is not useful if it is compartmentalized. The third part of this guide is designed to help students apply Anthem’s meaning to other areas of study, the real world, and their own lives.”

First of all, if the essay is a guide, then that is what it is. To say that it is intended as a guide denies the premise: perhaps it will not be accepted as a guide or be understood as a guide. If so, then the writer of the guide failed. More to the point, no one who reads Anthem needs to have it explained. If they do, then the writer of the story failed—and she did not. 

 

Back in the ‘60s, sometime after I read Anthem, I saw a social commentary comedian on Ed Sullivan. He said that people are upset at campus protests. He said that some people think that kids should spend more time in church. He said that perhaps the way to get kids into church is to put tanks in front of them and order the kids to stay away. That sort of sums up the message in Anthem. I did not need it explained to me. No one did. In fact, just as a classmate of mine had passed the book to me, I handed it off to a girl who took great exception to its message and marked it up with counter claims. Turns out, she was a Christian who understood the message quite well and disagreed with it quite clearly. She also did need not a study guide.

 

You want to keep kids from reading Ayn Rand? 

Order them to do it.

 

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