The Fantastic Truths which could unite us and the plausible lies that keep us divided 

A Consideration of Nature's Path

Background:

“In 2020, Glenn Cort sat down to write his youngest son a birthday card as he was heading off to college. Glenn had become worried that the world was changing in ways that he couldn’t understand. He was teaching a high school class and a general sense of societal noise and confusion dominated his classroom. Everyone could feel it, but nobody could place a finger on what it was. Feeling at a loss and unable to complete his letter to his son, he left his “day job” and set out on an exploration for any sources of truth which could explain what was happening and maybe even answer a question that had long been bothering him; why is it that people should struggle to get along so badly, and for so long?  

After several years of research he emerged more optimistic than ever. Having grown certain of finding recurring themes and patterns across cultures and time that represent pure objective truth, he was able to complete that birthday card. It became a book, Letters To Mikey, Messages of Hope and Optimism for Young Americans, which is the framework for this curriculum. 

Description and Goals:

This course aims to provide a pedagogical structure to teach teenagers how and why we struggle to get along, particularly in America, and what we can do to improve things.  It synthesizes leading information across disciplines concerning loss of natural affection for others, polarization, extremism and hate. Its goals are to help young people understand their natural born goodness; to rally around their commonalities and better navigate their differences. 

Designed to supplement high school social studies courses, and to be provided in clubs, camps, non-profits, places of worship, or in family and community gatherings, it provides a future generation with a life raft which they could cling to!  

Program Length and Resources

The core program can be taught in approximately eight hours. 2 sessions each of 4 hours, with recommended refreshment breaks in between. This assumes instructors have read the books given with the curriculum, as well have familiarized themselves with all materials. There are twelve modules. Introduction Module, Ten “Main Ingredient” Modules, and a Conclusion Module. It is recommended that this program be extended so that students also read the books offered in full, and all cited resources. Lastly, we suggest and hope that the curriculum runs concurrently with full semester courses, at the high school level, including but not limited to social studies, civics, or American History. 

Provided Books: Letters To Mikey, Messages of Hope and Optimism For Young Americans, by Glenn Cort. 5000 Year Leap, Eric Skousen, If You Can Keep It, Eric Metaxas, American Presidents,  are included with the curriculum. Also included is a physical “Ingredient Wheel” (used in the ending module), as well as “completion pins”.. There is a discussion blog about the book and this curriculum - which seeks input - at url substack/gettingalongacademy.

Program Design and Delivery

This curriculum has been designed to speak common sense to chaos without being judgy, preachy, political or religious. As such, it does not underestimate the natural born intelligence of its audience. Rather it contends based on scientific and evidentiary underpinnings that each of us are born with an uncanny sense of right and wrong. Therefore, while the materials will arm teachers and facilitators with the most credible, and proven “ingredients” which lead to misunderstanding and loss of trust between our fellow human beings, the concepts should be very familiar to instructors and facilitators. They are the most well researched, established, talked about and debated topics related to the subject matter.Therefore, the design of the course calls upon instructors to create a curriculum within a curriculum. They are to explore the concepts within each module and to use their judgement to decide which pieces they read directly from the script, or paraphrase, supplementing, modifying and adjusting, while keeping with the overall core message of the curriculum. Lastly, it is important to note that the whole of the curriculum is far more meaningful than the sum of its pieces. In the end, having tied it all together, a properly delivered lesson should culminate with potentially world changing knowledge and perspective. 

Kindly note, there are programming and suggestions for teachers notes throughout the curriculum, which are placed in italics. Programming notes will begin at the start of Module One.

Problem Statement: 

For most of us our care and concern for living in a world of peace and happiness, well exceeds our ability to do so. Most adults have a hunch that we could do so much better, and that something is missing. Many brilliant people have tried to diagnose how things go so wrong, in terms of our always quarreling the way we do. They seem to know the reasons why we fail to get along quite well, and they offer cures for the things that ail us, but at this moment (2024) we can’t move the needle. We seem to go around in circles, arguing about the same things forever. Albeit with different actors, but dividing along the same lines. Every presidential election we swap political parties and try different ways of approaching government. We spend the next four years with the losing party blaming the winning party for our problems, then we flip again and the same thing happens. No matter what person or political party is in charge, we always wind up with the same problems we had years earlier. It seems as if we've come to accept this nonsensical cycle as our reality, and all we are left to do is shake our heads left and right wondering why things are the way they are. Why can't we better navigate our differences and disagreements, and simply get along better? 

What if we could unlock the answer to that question, what have we been missing that is holding us back?  This simple course consolidates all of the words leading research and information to answer these questions. 

Request of participants:

The course makes a series of contentions, which are stated as absolute fact. It is well understood how unpopular it is to speak in terms of absolute truth about anything, particularly in America. Therefore, the program asks several things from participants in advance. One: that our absolutist approach be considered in a context of the many problems that society has had for so long and that students and instructors reserve judgement until all of the materials have been fully vetted and reviewed.  We ask you to challenge the contentions being made and try to disprove them. If you cannot, then please take action consistent with the perspectives offered.

Lastly, we ask that you make a promise: If as time passes, you have not seen the type of improvement in society that you would like to see, we ask that you stop and consider more deeply making a commitment to the materials in this short course.

Thank you. 

 Module 1 - Course Introduction: The Fantastic Truths and the Essence of Us

Programming and delivery notes for Teacher: (Class read LTM Chapter Nine, “The New Normal” Page 130) 

Teachers are encouraged to provide their own societal report card, including such things as depression and anxiety, teenage suicide rates, mass shootings, hate crimes, threats of political violence, etc. assuming of course they are credible and objective. The goal here is to deliver the raw facts, and if things are not improving, to stress the need for us to think and behave differently.

At the end of each module, you will find several quotations. These have been thoughtfully selected to stimulate discussion about the information in the module. Please discuss the quotations and core concepts of the module, before moving ahead to the next section.

In an interest to keep this program interactive, thought provoking, impactful and fun we use Participation Cards 4’ x 6’. Wherever there are bullets, you will see a reminder programming note to hand out Participation Cards. Please hand out the cards in advance and rotate individual participants, who will each read only one bullet. Lastly, where you see the note All Together Participation, please guide the whole class in reading that bullet in unison. 

Good morning students!

The first thing we are going to do this morning is to go outside and look at the sky. This program we are embarking on today asks us to consider drawing knowledge from mother nature, and to consider if mother nature plays any role in our lives?

This should be Fun!

(Now Outside) 

First exercise:  “Is there an essence of being Human?” While immersed in nature, please consider the following question - What does it mean to be “the Bigger Person” as opposed to a smaller person? What words come to mind for each? Also when we think of a person who is “remarkable” rather than “ordinary” please list words that describe each.  Discuss while outside and make the chart please; leave it up on the wall for the remainder of the curriculum. 

(See sample result below)

Consider: Can we agree as a class to what a bigger person looks like? Or someone who is remarkable versus ordinary? Also discuss: What does "character" look like? What does virtue look like? Is there a consensus in the classroom?  

Now let's consider what will be referred to during this course as The Fantastic Truths, and Natural Laws.  

The creator's order of things is called the natural law. It was first introduced by Marcus Cicero and other Roman and Greek philosophers nearly 3000 years ago, and although it has been stated in different ways, it unmistakably comes down to three concepts:

The Findings /The Fantastic Truths/ The Natural Laws:

• Natural Law 101 - Unlike any other species born in the universe, people are born with higher gifts, to reason. We are uniquely reflective and self-aware, with a natural affection for other living things, and an almost endless capacity to learn, grow and develop virtue. We are meant to be remarkable, and not ordinary.

• Natural Law 102 -  We were meant to be humble, and not arrogant, to live in awe of all those things that we will never know.

• Natural Law 103 - We were created to be modest and moderate in all things, balanced, and not extreme.

(return indoors if you like)

Discuss these natural laws. Do they seem familiar to you? 

Now discuss the following contentions: (Please note; we strongly encourage participants to do independent research, to try and disprove any of the following statements)

(Participant Cards here - Individuals rotate and read each bullet slowly and clearly)

• The Dali Lama, Buddha, Confucius, MLK, JFK, and millions of others all  have posited the same ideas about a framework of how we are supposed to live our lives.

• It’s grounded in the specific concepts of the individual pursuit of virtue and the actualization of our higher gifts. 

• If you go to any church, or read the bible, or if you go to another place of worship; if you read self help books, or listen to TED talks, they are all saying the same exact thing, just in different ways.

• The Natural Laws represent a framework for which to live our lives. Proven principles of human conduct that results in our success both personally and collectively. 

• During the 80 year  “enlightenment period” our founding fathers relied upon these specific natural laws, in order to create our system of government. 

• Most of us go through our lives acting according to these natural laws without even realizing it, because the natural laws are the essence of who we are, and who we were meant to be. 

• When we live our lives according to these natural laws we do well, individually and collectively. 

• The more we detach from these laws we fail. 

Teacher: Today's medical doctors have confirmed with scientific certainty how we stave off illness, and gain happiness, and wouldn’t you know, that what they prescribe boils down to these three very simple concepts. 

(Participant Cards)

• Human beings were meant to be Remarkable, not ordinary. 

• We are to be humble, not arrogant. 

• We are to be moderate, not extreme.  

Teacher: The founder of this course spent over five years, prior to the creation of this curriculum, hiring independent researchers to find countering positions that would prove that the Natural laws do not exist, and that they do NOT represent truth and reality for mankind. The harder we looked, the more clear these truths revealed themselves to be not only well established, across cultures and time, but indisputable in practice, and proven by our life experiences.

Everywhere we looked to prove these ideas false, or to discount the principles of natural law, we could not! That is why we created this course, and why we began to call these things, the “fantastic truths”. 

Main Contentions of the course, for you to try to disprove: 

(Participant Cards)

• There is a reason why our society has been performing so badly for so long. 

• We have a true nature. We are endowed with a calling to move beyond our ordinary, to grow virtuous and to advance all other species. When we defy our nature, we fail to live up to our natural given potential, both individually and collectively. 

• There is a grand scheme to things down here, which is not to be taken lightly. 

• When we act like an ordinary species, we run afoul of the universe’s plan. 

• Life, like any other game, has rules, and when we don’t follow the rules, we lose the game. 

Discussion:  Do any of the foregoing statements seem inaccurate? Do you think - at the time of our birth - human beings are ordinary or remarkable?  Is it true or false that for the most part we will do better in our lives, have more success and happiness both individually and collectively,  when we are humble or rather - arrogant?  What about modesty and moderation, rather than being extreme? Do we do better in life when we seek the middle ground? 

On a scale of 1- 10 what does the class believe in the accuracy of natural laws? Are you open to believing that there could actually be a predestined path for human behavior? 

Discussion quotations: 

• “Standing on the bare ground – my head up­ lifted into infinite space – my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all..” Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than it’s opposite.”  Nelson Mandella (1994)

Resources for Module 1 ; Introduction to human goodness and the Natural Laws. 

Letters to Mikey,  Chapter’s 1-3. 

Take home article : People are Good; we can prove it. substack/gettingalongacademy

5000 Year Leap

End Module One

Segway to next section:  

(Participant Cards)

• If Natural Laws have been so well established? 

• If we are born SO good?

• If these fantastic truths have also been scientifically proven as fact?

(All Together) 

• Then why do we fail to follow them? 

Teacher: There are a number of very powerful and confusing forces which cause us to detach from our true nature, become untethered from the natural laws, and to not live our lives according to the fantastic truths. The ingredients that follow are complex, each by themselves. 

However, it’s the unique way in which they work all together and feed off each other, which gives them enduring and unstoppable power.

The ingredients bring out the worst in us. They blind us. They are very much like a perfect storm. 

(Teacher discuss the concept of the perfect storm).

We have never been able to overcome these ingredients.  Until NOW!

Now, without further ado, let’s turn to the Top Ten Ingredients to how and why we detach from the natural laws, and live according to a distorted reality. 

Sound like fun?  Let's do it!