Tips for Teaching the 2024 Presidential Election, Part Two: In the Classroom

#1: Make a community agreement (posted 1/29/24)

For anyone who has seen me present, this is old news. But for everyone else, I urge you to craft a set of durable, visible, thought-provoking norms that will help students understand how they are supposed to engage with each other. The election might get slippery. Communities need guardrails. These are the guardrails.

Many teachers have some version of such an agreement, although they tend to get neglected (see: dusty, faded poster you once triumphantly laminated but which you now only notice when the thumb tacks get knocked off). It’s time to get back to that agreement, to revise it if necessary, or to craft a new one. Facing History has a helpful lesson on co-creating such an agreement (which they call “contracting”) with students.

For my money, a useful community agreement (or contract, or set of norms, or whatever you want to call it) will probably include two sort of different, but complementary, sets of commitments. One is about behavior, such as, “We agree to…

• Listen to learn, rather than to refute

• Avoid interrupting

• Ask follow-up questions

 The other set of commitments is more about mindset—it’s about cultivating a way of thinking that will in turn drive classroom behavior. This could include statements such as, “We agree…”

• that listening does not necessarily indicate endorsing or agreeing

• that we are enhanced, rather than diminished, by being around ideas with which we disagree (with thanks to Simon Greer, whose Bridging the Gap initiative is now managed by Interfaith America)

• to take winning off the table (with thanks to the Better Arguments Project for that language)

  Those are meaty statements, and not all teachers may agree with them. Think carefully about what you are trying to teach, though, and be sure that the rules of your road—in a classroom or the broader learning community—guide students toward the goals you value. Get your agreement in order, and then feature it relentlessly. If you make it matter—if students see that you mean what you say—it will provide the stability and clarity you’ll need when the divisiveness of the election starts to feel oppressive.

#2: Look for the helpers (posted 2/1/24)

Our political leaders can be terrible role models (some, yes, are really, especially terrible). It is therefore understandable that teachers might hesitate to attend to the election because doing so—featuring this nasty rhetoric—feels like more of a disservice than a service to our students.

But we can show our students examples of elected officials who are in fact playing nicely. The joint campaign ad of the 2020 Democratic and Republican candidates for governor of Utah is one example. Spencer Cox won that election and, as the current Chair of the National Governors Association, has launched a Disagree Better initiative that features video snippets of governors of opposing political viewpoints engaging in civil discourse.

Another resource with potential is the Common Ground Scorecard, which rates officials on their commitment to working across lines of disagreement to solve problems. On a scale of 1 to 100 (with the tantalizing possibility of losing or gaining up to an extra 20 points due to extraordinary behavior):

• President Biden has earned a 30.

• Former President Trump: -20.

• Dean Phillips, who is likely to have completely disappeared from the electoral radar (if he was ever on it) by the time you read this, has earned a 104. 104!

The election will naturally pull our attention toward the usual suspects. But if we are interested in helping kids learn how to work across lines of divide and disagreement, let’s use the energy of the election to also drive students towards the models we wish them to emulate (there are many on the Common Ground website). I’ve often heard people ask, “Where are the examples of politicians actually working and speaking across the aisle with civility?” They are out there. Let’s help our students discover them.

#3: Go local (posted February 5, 2024)

Just as we can leverage the buzz of the presidential election to highlight leaders who bridge divides, we can also turn our attention to those overlooked “down-ballot” candidates—the folks running for a congressional seat, or mayor, or even school board or city council positions.

We can capture many of the same learning opportunities this way—we can look at maps, and do math, and discuss campaign promises. But, in contrast to the presidential candidates, we can get a lot closer to the people who in most cases are going to be much closer themselves to the issues that affect students’ lives on a day-to-day basis; and we can probably get some of these folks into our schools to actually talk with our kids.

The presidential election will function like a black hole – scary, awesome, with an unimaginable gravitational force. And black holes are so interesting! I’m not one to turn away. But the presidential election could also sort of be like a portal that draws our students and then, when we’ve got them interested, allows us to take them somewhere else-- like the local elections.

#4: Strengthen media literacy skills (posted February 12, 2024)

We all see it coming: a well-intentioned teacher uses an article, or video, or snippet of a podcast to feature some development in the election that connects nicely to class. The next day, she receives an irate email from a parent who simply cannot abide this bias and who reminds the teacher that schools are meant to teach students how to think, not what to think. Shaken, the teacher ends up in the office of her supervisor, who listens sympathetically but suggests that in the interest of balance, she try to give equal weight to news sources from the right and left. Reasonable enough, yes?

Sort of. But let’s remember that the consumption of media—media of all sorts and all biases—provides ideal fodder for the development of critical-thinking skills. Instead of avoiding media that could be construed as “biased” (because it’s all biased), or even mechanically inserting a second source of news to “balance” another, let’s make it simpler for ourselves and much more powerful for students: let’s ask them to critique all the media—whether we provide it or they find it on their own.

Maybe you find a thought-provoking article in the New York Times about how gun-control is being discussed on the campaign trail, and—what timing!—you were about to study the Second Amendment. Great! Use that article! And while using it, to help build the habit of critical inquiry, have students analyze the article, perhaps using this guide from the Media Education Lab:

Maybe a Fox News video raises concerns about President Biden’s age. And you’re thinking to yourself, Huh, if this weren’t Fox News, it would actually be interesting to watch this together since we’re about to discuss the requirements to be president. But I don’t dare use Fox News in class, do I?  Sure, you dare, because, as with any piece of media we incorporate into our teaching, we can do two things simultaneously: address the relevant content (in this case the constitutionally-stipulated requirements to serving as president) and also teach kids to think critically by having them analyze the media we’ve featured.

Does it make sense generally to expose students to a wide array of media from across the political spectrum? Sure. Of course. But are we serving them by almost robotically inserting a left-of-center media outlet alongside a right-of-center piece just for form’s sake? Let’s let the analysis of media be the tool that helps sharpen students’ critical thinking skills, rather than sanitizing their media stream by curating out the possibility of imbalance. Let’s let the students conclude on their own, through rigorous analysis, that a given piece of media has limitations, rather than assuming we have to do it for them.

Tips for Teaching the 2024 Presidential Election, Part One: Preparing the Adults

#1: Consider well in advance: are you in or out? (posted 12/8/23)

At a basic level, schools really need to decide if they want to tangle with this presidential election or not. Do you see it as a teaching tool? Or do you see it as a distraction that threatens to disrupt the learning environment for your students?

I hope most schools will be in—that they will seize the civic moment, especially given its historic divisiveness. This is a time to help students develop curiosity about and empathy for those with whom they disagree. The divisions this election will highlight are not going away on their own; we owe it to our kids to help them develop the skills and dispositions to ease them.

But maybe there are compelling reasons to think that for your school, given its learners or its culture or any number of variables, you’ll take a pass—that attending to the election would be more of a distraction than a benefit.

Whatever the case, this is the time to start planning.

#2: Decide WHY you’ll teach about the election (posted 12/15/23)

This is not self-evident. In the absence of direction from school leaders, there’s likely to be broad (probably unspoken) disagreement among faculty (and, yes, parents) about what’s to be gained by paying attention to the election.

Some will understand the task to be teaching electoral mechanics (such as how the electoral college works) or what the role of the president is. In this school of thought, there is a body of information related to the election that will help students become more savvy citizens. Some may believe that the particular personalities, rhetoric, or issues involved in this election are beside the point, since the goal is to know generally how elections work and what the people who win them are supposed to do. Some teachers, consequently, may believe that it is their job to shield students from the noise of our polarized political landscape—that this messiness just obscures the timeless civic content that has always been and should always be taught.

Others, however, may see the election as a living lesson in how to share opinions and manage disagreement. In this school of thought, it’s fair game to refer to what the actual candidates are saying, or to wonder how actual people feel about and are impacted by the things being said, or to discuss contentious issues regarding campaign promises or the conduct of candidates, etc. In this school of thought, the election is an opportunity to help students express themselves and to develop curiosity and understanding about those with whom they disagree. The polarization is not a distraction; it’s a national reality that calls for teachers to help students develop skills to ease it.

I belong to both camps. Students need to know basic civics, but we also should lean into the election because it helps us teach students how to coexist with ideas or people that can feel uncomfortable to them. I hope many people will agree with me. Either way, school leaders should have a huddle as soon as possible to decide—and eventually articulate for the rest of the school community—what they want to get out of this election. Abdicating that responsibility tosses the job to individual teachers, who will inevitably approach this monumental teaching moment in disparate ways, undermining students’ education and leaving everyone open to assaults from disgruntled parents.

Really, it’s better to get ahead of this thing and decide what you want to get out of it.

#3 Decide what you would do if… (posted 1/5/24)

Way in advance of the general election (which in my book would be this winter or spring of 2024), carve out some time for a faculty meeting in which you imagine a tricky election-related scenario. One reliably contentious, guaranteed-to-get-people-worked-up hypothetical: the case of a student coming to school wearing a MAGA hat. But feel free to swap it out for a Biden hat (do they even make Biden hats?).

Oh look! They do!

(image captured from: https://www.ebay.com/itm/266234340296)

I’ve found that it actually doesn’t matter all that much what the particulars of the scenario are—whether you imagine a kid displaying a provocative symbol, or whether you imagine a conservative speaker being protested, or a teacher sharing a political point of view that rubs a family the wrong way. Most times, if you toss out a dicey scenario and ask teachers how they would manage it, you will eventually get to the good stuff, which is a host of important questions: do we allow politics into this school? How much do we value free speech, especially if that speech offends members of our community? Do we expect our students to feel comfortable at school? Do we expect our students to feel discomfort at school? How might other people see this situation differently?

It is those questions that have the potential to generate some common understanding among faculty about what the school is trying to do during what is guaranteed to be a fraught electoral season. A purposeful learning experience for the students requires the adults to first hash out some tricky questions behind closed doors.

#4 Secure mask before assisting child (posted 1/17/24)

Bring on this election, you say! With colleagues, you’ve clarified why you’ll pay attention to this circus, and you’ve game-planned what to do in a handful of tricky but foreseeable situations. Doing so has surfaced a number of challenging questions that really, come to think about it, are about the purpose of education itself. You haven’t answered those, exactly, but they have provoked thought; you’re working on them.

But what about you? You say you’re interested in helping students reach across lines of divide and disagreement, and you see the election as a tool that will help them get there. You want students to be more charitable, less judge-y, in their estimation of those with whom they disagree. You want them to better understand the role of emotion in sharpening the divide between the political “us” and “them.” You want kids to discover how media shapes their views—not only of issues but of people. You want them to be curious, and civil, and respectful, even in the face of disagreement. But what about you?

How does your morning get started? With a bracing cup of outrage, delivered via iPhone from your trusted source of news? How do you feel about this election, and about the personalities involved in it? How often do you ask questions of those across the political aisle? What are you doing to position yourself to be a curious, bridge-building member of this democracy? How are you managing the stress of the electoral cycle so that you can support your students? What are you doing to tune out some of the overwhelming negativity of the election and tune into the hopefulness of democracy in action?

Let’s start with us. Find a human being who will vote for the other candidate and ask why—and mean it. Then ask follow up questions. Take stock of your news intake and try varying it. What about your emotional well-being? Is the election taking a toll on your mental health? Would you benefit from limiting your use of that little pocket computer and its ceaseless stream of doom? Watch something hopeful. Take a walk. Breath. Secure your own mask before assisting child.

#5 Don’t forget the parents! (posted 1/24/24)

I know. They’re scary. They complain, and they accuse, and they can be awfully ungrateful, considering the number of times we have to ask some of their children to please just get a tissue and stop making that noise in our classroom. But also, we should remember that these parents who complain and accuse and remain ungrateful are usually just a vocal minority. Most are pretty agreeable.

If we want this election season to go well—if we want to teach kids civic lessons and equip them with the skills and dispositions they’ll need to reach across lines of divide and disagreement—we better touch base with the parents. For real. Well in advance of the 2024 presidential election, we should loop them into the plan.

So what would we say? Here are some suggestions:

• Remind them what’s important at this school and what we want for their kids.

• Tell them how those goals will be furthered by attending to the election.

• Give them a couple of concrete examples of how election-related content could appear in your teaching.

• Tell them what you won’t be doing (such as advocating for a particular candidate).

• Invite them to tell you what worries them about how the election will be handled.

• Tell them how they can help reinforce the lessons you’re trying to teach (one great way is to model curiosity at home—suggest they ask their kids questions like: I wonder how that candidate came to that position? What about the people who disagreed with you in class about that issue—what points did they make? How has your mind changed recently? How could someone see it differently?

• Sum it up—tell them the election will remind us of the divisiveness that plagues our country and that teaching our kids to ease that divisiveness calls on us to attend to—not ignore—teachable moments such as the election.

Parents like a nice heads-up, and they like to know that there’s a purpose and a plan for what happens at school. They’ll appreciate the outreach.

A call to arms

The following also appeared on MiddleWeb. Check it out there!

About four years ago, having taught middle school history for two decades, I left the classroom and started Middle Ground School Solutions to help today’s students face tomorrow’s political polarization. One of my first gigs was to deliver a half-day workshop on the First Amendment for a group of seventh graders at a school whose administrators, as the date drew near, began to fret. It was the Trump flag that did it.

My plan was to ask students a central question (To what extent should a school allow controversial political speech?), provide pertinent background on the Constitution, and share the real-life scenario of a school that had been flummoxed by the appearance of a Trump flag. It was that last bit that got people jittery, prompting one school leader to gently suggest via email that he would be “cautious about incorporating any specific political figures into student-led discussions.” In other words, Please, man, we’ve got enough troubles. The bus driver slept late, and half the fourth grade has lice. Could you throw us a bone here and not bring up Trump?

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Educating is hard enough, and it would be so much easier to avoid contentious political topics that could elicit unpredictable reactions from students. Nonetheless, we do those students a disservice in taking the path of least resistance. Not only do kids sharpen their critical-thinking skills when faced with contentious topics, but they develop the capacity and desire to engage with people across lines of disagreement. This inclination—to reach across divides—will be invaluable as tomorrow’s leaders work to solve the seemingly intractable problems that we pass on to them.

So yes, it is daunting to invite politics—which I consider to be the stuff that society deems important or worth debating—into the classroom. But when we do, appealing opportunities present themselves.

Conversation Agreements

One of these opportunities is the chance to teach children how to engage in dialogue across lines of disagreement. This starts with establishing guardrails to contain conversations. I used to stick up a poster with conversation guidelines that, like outdated wallpaper, blended into the background of my classroom. Eventually, though, I centered those previously dusty guidelines, and I discovered that thoughtful class norms, frequently invoked, were absolutely essential to productive dialogue.

Like most things, when students have a hand in shaping such norms of engagement, they will be more durable. Both Facing History and Ourselves and the “Let’s Talk” guide from Learning for Justice (see page 23) offer guidance for middle school teachers looking to go that route. Critically, though, even as we invite student input, we should be sure to add our two cents. I find it useful to name for students that we aim for curiosity in our conversations, rather than victory, which, for many kids, requires a substantial shift in mindset. In the words of the Better Arguments Project: “Take winning off the table.” It’s also powerful to establish that earnest listening does not necessarily indicate agreement. As Simon Greer, founder of Bridging the Gap, puts it, we “believe we are enhanced by proximity to points of view we disagree with.”

Any classroom agreement will inevitably feature the word “listen,” which presents another opportunity: to teach kids how to do it. In my experience, there is a wide disconnect between our stated emphasis on listening and our lackluster instruction of it. While researching my book, Learning to Depolarize, I found that listening essentially consists of three elements: nonverbal attending (such as a nod of the head), reflecting (which includes paraphrasing), and asking open-ended questions. Listening is an active sport. We must teach students how to play the sport, and then we should assess their progress in that domain; let’s measure them not just on how often and eloquently they speak but on how skillfully they listen.

Media Literacy

Beyond sharpening classroom rules of engagement, when we invite the political into our classrooms, we find other opportunities. Very quickly, for instance, we discover the urgency of media literacy. Teachers are deathly afraid of introducing contentious topics that might elicit an ignorant comment. In fact, though, when we do unearth such sentiments, it gives us a chance to dig for their origins. What information led you to that belief? To what extent are you influenced by those for whom you feel some personal admiration (such as social media influencers in the mold of Andrew Tate), versus those who earn other forms of credibility? (See Courageous RI, featuring media literacy expert Renee Hobbes, for more on the topic of influence.)

There are obvious opportunities to examine the biases of news sources (see this helpful media bias chart), and we should help students realize that media from both sides of the political aisle present politics as a zero-sum game of win or lose. To expose this reality for students is to help them understand their own inclination to instinctively seek to “win” a political “argument.” Many esteemed organizations provide guidance for media literacy education; try the Media Education Lab for five key questions to guide the examination of any media, including political news coverage.

Social Emotional Learning

Finally, when we get into politics at school, we have a golden opportunity—I might even say a mandate—to incorporate social emotional learning. Many of us applaud SEL, while struggling to weave it into our daily teaching. Here’s our chance: give the kids something provocative to discuss. We might assume that rational, reasoned thinking drives dialogue around contentious topics. In fact, as Jonathan Haidt explains in The Righteous Mind, emotion is central to our thinking, and when we feel threatened by the political “other,” automatic thinking processes take the wheel. We owe it to our kids to help them learn to self-regulate in the face of a perceived threat, to develop the reflective tendencies that will allow them to press more deeply into thorny discussions; otherwise, the automatic fight-or-flight mechanism will derail our best-laid plans to foster civil discourse.

This goes for adults, as well. In some of my workshops, I have asked teachers to consider the same scenario—about the Trump flag in school—that I presented at my First Amendment workshop, and several have told me that, were they to find themselves facing what felt like a provocative symbol in their classroom, they would probably freeze. Indeed. This is how we humans are built—to fight, flee, or freeze. If we are to ask our students to engage in productive dialogue across lines of disagreement, we must first, as they say, put on our own oxygen masks; sometimes a deep breath does wonders.

Final Thoughts

So. How did it go with the First Amendment workshop and the Trump flag and the worried administrators? Did I water down the day? Did I redact references to President Trump and substitute a nameless “leader?” I did not, and the day went smoothly. But they don’t always. Sometimes in my workshops and in our classes there are, and there will continue to be, messy situations that feel untidy and uncomfortable. But our assessment of whether things are going well cannot be whether, at the end of a particular class, we merely have the sense that it was a “good conversation.”

What matters is that years from now our students are able to engage meaningfully with people who see the world very differently so that they can solve—or at least make progress on—the most pressing and divisive dilemmas facing them. This will only happen if we give them the experience—including discussing contentious issues with people who may hold dissimilar views and whose comments and reactions could trigger negative emotions—they’ll need for the job.

Building Bridges… Even With Those Who Dehumanize?

When I was fresh from college and unsure what came next, I found myself in a career-counseling session that suggested I wasn’t very good at a great many things. Still, there was hope for me, given my instinct to connect. I was characterized as a “bridge-builder” and advised that a profession—like teaching—that featured plenty of human contact would suit me. It did, for twenty years. More recently, ready for whatever came after the thing that came after college, I leaned even more heavily into my bridge-building tendencies, writing a book called Learning to Depolarize and starting Middle Ground School Solutions to help prepare today’s students to ease tomorrow’s political polarization.

In is my job, then, to help educators reach across lines of divide and find the motivation and tools to help students to do so, because it is clear that political polarization is an enduring challenge that awaits those students. This work generally animates people, although questions arise, one of the most vexing of which speaks to a quote widely attributed to James Baldwin but which is in fact the product of author Robert Jones, Jr. His tweet (since deleted) resonated with many: “We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” At nearly every presentation I deliver, I am confronted with this question. How, people ask, am I supposed to empathize with, or even tolerate, someone who does not recognize my humanity, or the humanity of those I care for? Is this not a bridge too far?

The question has a simple answer, which is that no one should, in the interest of political diversity or any other project, have to engage with, or humor, or embolden someone who does not recognize one’s basic humanity. And I believe that for many people, in many circumstances, this simple answer is the only one that should matter. Still, we must face the enormity of our country’s challenges, and we must realistically consider the depth of the divides that separate those who might otherwise collaborate to manage those challenges. Is it not in fact the case that some of the most essential bridges may be the ones that allow the most alienated and angry people to migrate away from their islands of certitude? Could there in fact be more than one answer to this central question of whether we engage with those who deny others’ humanity?

For a couple of years—at least—I have thought deeply about this question, and I have sought a wide array of people within and beyond the world of education to help me do so. This past winter I convened a series of conversations with school-based DEI practitioners to discuss the tension inherent in pursuing political tolerance in schools while simultaneously seeking to elevate historically marginalized voices. I turned also to Mylien Duong, Caroline Mehl, and Caroline Jany, whose Aspen Institute report considers a similar tension, and during the National Week of Conversation this spring, Jahmad Canley, Cliff Kayser, and Karith Foster delivered an insightful presentation called “DEI in the Crosswinds” that raised the question of engaging—or not—with those who do not recognize one’s humanity.

I also completed extensive research for my book, and I discovered, interestingly, that we’re pretty lousy at knowing what makes our political opposites tick. We often unfairly generalize, conjuring the most visible and detestable figure from politics or media and attaching our feelings about that person to the political “other”—the parent or student, perhaps—in our midst. Research from More in Common has shown that many Americans from both sides of the aisle have a distorted image of how their political opposites actually think, and other research has shown that our meta-perceptions are out of whack; that is, we tend to think that the political others hold us in lower esteem than is actually the case.

This includes the issue of dehumanization, which an organization called Beyond Conflict has studied closely. “Levels of dehumanization between Republicans and Democrats are concerning,” they write. “But what’s even more concerning are the levels of perceived dehumanization– the degree to which we feel dehumanized by members of an opposing group.” In fact, the researchers say, both Democrats and Republicans overestimate the extent to which the other side dehumanizes them (see the report for more on the methodology).

In short, then, it is true for many of us Americans that our political opposites are not as extreme as we imagine, they do not dislike us as much as we believe, and they do not diminish our humanity to the extent that we suspect they do.

This is not to suggest that dehumanization is a myth. Again, I have come to believe that for many people, in many circumstances, when faced with evidence that they or others are being dehumanized, it is reasonable—maybe even noble—to end the conversation before it begins. However, even as we acknowledge this eventuality, can we also see a crack in the door, a possible opening to pursue? Given the research into our misperceptions, could it sometimes be the case that the premise of our statement—that we will not engage with those who dehumanize others—is worth interrogating to check first that we have our facts straight? If so, an appropriate response may, in some cases, be inquiry: Who, exactly, am I referring to? What has happened that leads me to believe that person or those people do not recognize another’s humanity? We do not need to humor those who hate, but the research into misperceptions suggests that for some people, some of the time, we may be quite a bit off base; many people are not as monstrous as we imagine them to be.

I will even go out on a limb and question whether we should always categorically cut off dialogue with those who do display incontrovertible evidence of dehumanization, because inspiring models suggest there may be another option. These include Dylan Marron, author of the book, Conversations with People Who Hate Me, and host of a podcast by the same name, who engages in dialogue with people who have previously subjected him to dehumanizing online rhetoric. They include the anonymous former classmates of Derek Black, once an avid white supremacist who wrote in The New York Times that his exit from the world of white nationalism began with the outreach of “people who chose to invite me into their dorms and conversations rather than ostracize me.” Through the American Listening Project, Lisa Allen Ortiz tells the tale of the belligerent Nazi whose ire and energy softened in the fifteen minutes she devoted to listening attentively to him.

The potential to disarm hatred through engagement is perhaps most astonishingly epitomized by a documentary called Stranger at the Gate, which tells the story of a former US marine named Mac McKinney, who, bristling with the Islamophobia he accumulated during his military service abroad and returning home to to find his country infested, resolved to kill as many Muslims as possible. McKinney trained his sights on a local Islamic center, which he intended to bomb, and which he visited as a form of reconnaissance. Against all odds, he was welcomed by that community, to which he ultimately devoted himself. As Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai points out in a PBS interview about the film, violence is bred by dehumanization, which can, as it was in Muncie, Indiana, be disrupted through loving engagement.

Temperamentally, I am suited to the work of bridge-building; the career counselor had it right. I am also cloaked in layers of privilege—as a white, cisgender, heterosexual male—that make it less difficult for me to engage in this work than it is for some. If I have a “red line,” some sort of criteria to determine if I will or will not engage with the “other,” I have not yet found it. I recognize, though, that for many reasons, in many circumstances, another person may feel differently. If the question, then, is, “How do you expect me to engage with someone who does not recognize my humanity, or the humanity of people I care for?” my answer is, “I don’t.” But my answer could also, at times, be a gentle, “What makes you say this person does not recognize others’ humanity?”

I would also hope to be able to say this to those are receptive: “If you can stomach it, yes, please do engage, and know that in doing so you could be saving those whose humanity this person does not yet recognize.”

Election season is here. What do we do about it?

The following appears in the October bulletin of the North Carolina Association of Independent Schools:

Political polarization has made teaching tough. So it must be especially daunting these days to teach in North Carolina, a battleground state evenly divided along party lines and roiled by arguments over redistricting. This is a state that sent Madison Cawthorn to Congress, yet some counties voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden in 2020. With midterm elections just weeks away and teachers mindful of their duty to dole out civic lessons, folks could be forgiven for wondering: what could possibly go wrong this fall?

As I watch from afar—Massachusetts—it strikes me that the unease felt by many teachers across the country is perhaps magnified in North Carolina. I know from my own discussions and workshops that teachers are on edge, and I also know there is a cyclical, rhythmic pattern to the worry: as elections approach, teachers feel both obligated to seize the teachable moments and, simultaneously, terrified by the prospect of wading into the minefield of politics. It’s enough to make us want to steer entirely clear of that mess.

We are peacemakers, we teachers, and it is natural for us to wonder whether we might drown out the “noise” of politics, put our heads down, and teach our subjects. Maybe that mock election, which we held in previous years, should be between lunch options this time, rather than real candidates (sloppy joes or pizza? cast your ballot today!). Perhaps we might gently avoid, when possible, overt discussions of race, because the national discourse has imbued those discussions with what feels like unmanageable tension. We may harbor these thoughts, but I hope we will not act on them.

Because, yes, for sure, teaching in an era of political polarization is hard. But as difficult as our job is, we do our students no service by shielding them from the controversies that swirl. If our duty feels tough, imagine how hard it will be for these students to grow into adults who will face not only today’s problems—which our paralysis of polarization has kept us from solving—but also the problems of tomorrow. They will do so against the backdrop of the same polarization we now experience, because political polarization is not a passing phase; it will be a feature of our students’ lives years from now.

 Therefore, students must have ample practice at navigating lines of disagreement if they are to work across lines of divide to solve tomorrow’s challenges. They must learn to listen carefully and purposefully to people with whom they disagree. They need every opportunity we can provide to sharpen their bridge-building skills. Shielding students from these opportunities—which might naturally arise during an election season—would be a dereliction of duty.

 We can do this without unnecessarily courting trouble. It begins, I think, with rallying around a common goal. Can you and your colleagues agree that students need bridgebuilding skills to face tomorrow’s polarization? If so, say it out loud: this is a learning goal. Having done so, other pieces will fall into place. Teachers will find the granular lesson ideas to help them structure classes in ways that engender cross-ideological communication and cooperation. Administrators will share the learning goal with parents, who can then agree that the choice of a particular text or news source was not made out of animosity but rather out of clarity of purpose: we need diverse sources of information if we are to help students interrogate those sources. And indeed, the decision to examine an impending election could then be viewed by all parties for what it is—another mechanism to reach our learning goal—rather than what it is not—“indoctrination.”

 Those who find themselves animated by the challenges ahead may look for more detailed guidance and inspiration. They could find it among the resources I’ve gathered on my website or by attending one or more of the workshops I’ll be offering to NCAIS teachers this year through the Subscription Series. Finally, for the full story, try my book, Learning to Depolarize: Helping Students and Teachers Reach Across Lines of Disagreement, which will be available later in October.

 Sure, times are tough, and polarization is a thorn in our side. We will serve our students best, however, by reframing our understanding of political polarization. Polarization is not a distraction that we should seek to minimize in order to focus on our teaching. Rather, political polarization is a reminder of what we need to be teaching. This is the world our students will face, and they must have the skills to face it.

Positioning faculty to help students depolarize

The following also appears in Intrepid Ed:

I do not live in the most politically prejudiced county in the United States. That would be Suffolk County, Massachusetts, home of Boston. But I live next door, and my home county doesn’t fare much better. In fact, it ranks in the 99th percentile of the most politically intolerant regions in the nation—this, according to a study performed by the polling and analytics firm PredictWise and reported in the Atlantic in 2019. While I would have characterized my hometown as progressive rather than intolerant, I am reminded of the conservative writer, William F. Buckley, Jr., who is credited with saying, “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”

The Essex County school that employed me for fourteen years is predictably staffed by a preponderance of progressive teachers. But they aren’t all left-leaning, and during my final year there I set out to explore the viewpoint diversity that had been generally overlooked in my time at the school. An institutional structure stood ready to house the work: an optional gathering of faculty to discuss a single topic related to diversity in education each year, known by the acronym IDEA. Precedent had established a calendar of roughly six annual meetings fueled by snacks and, sure, maybe a beer, beginning just after students left the building. In 2018 I volunteered to lead an exploration of political differences within the faculty. And then I held my breath.

It went surprisingly well. Each gathering featured a single, brave, conservative-leaning faculty member sharing the personal journey that informed his or her political outlook. Through those stories—of childhood, family, and work—we made progress. Tribal barriers softened as people empathized with their colleague’s reflections. One evening a presenter discussed his family’s cherished plot of land. With this land came challenges that required the use of a rifle, and stewardship of the land was a source of pride for the entire family. Gun ownership made sense. I doubt anyone in the room changed their mind about gun control, but for the first time many in attendance could say they truly understood the motivation of someone who valued the Second Amendment.

Structure was our friend. Following each presenter’s initial narrative, we asked clarifying questions. “This is not an invitation to poke holes in the volunteer’s story,” read our guidelines. “To the contrary, it is a chance to more deeply understand and appreciate that person’s point of view.” When those clarifying questions had been answered, everyone turned to a written reflection: “This section does not ask that you’ve changed your mind about anything, just that you record what you’ve heard.” Finally, we closed each session with a period of verbal reflection, during which attendees thanked the volunteer by showing that they had heard—whether or not they agreed with—what had been shared.

In retrospect, although I relied mostly on intuition to draw up the contours of that experience, research validates the approach (as a former colleague likes to say, “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.”) According to the Greater Good Science Center, “It turns out that many conditions have to be met for contact to reduce prejudice, including having contact be sustained, with more than one member of the group, including a genuine exchange of ideas, and between individuals of similar social rank.” We nailed those conditions, meeting throughout the year and inviting a range of presenters, all of whom, by virtue of their common profession, shared a “similar social rank.” The focus on personal stories—as opposed to policy positions—was a good move, affirmed by a recent survey of studies showing that personal narratives more effectively bridge moral and political divides than do facts. Finally, the written reflection acted as a pause button, allowing for the “amygdala hijack” that Daniel Goleman once described to run its course before yielding to reasoning.

If I’m being honest, I had the liberals in mind when I designed that professional-development experience. The progressive majority in our school needed practice listening to and building empathy for people with whom they disagreed. The conservatives were just the foil, stepping up to perform a service; at least that’s the way I designed it. What I had not anticipated was the weight that would be lifted from the backs of those conservative faculty members as they shared their stories. In the years since that experience, I have told a number of educators that they are likely to house a small number of uncomfortable conservative teachers. People tend to bristle at that suggestion, their skepticism perhaps flowing from the belief that our political divide is essentially intellectual. We choose our politics, the thinking goes. If a conservative faculty member espouses policy positions at odds with the majority of their colleagues and, perhaps, certain tenets of the school itself, then that’s their choice.

This assumption misses the reality, though, that our divide is rooted in group membership. Yes, according to many measures, we are ideologically polarized, leading us to disagree about policy. But the more profound divide is affective polarization: we feel warmth towards members of the in-group and we feel animus towards members of the out-group. We sustain ourselves through the emotional nourishment of the group, and when we do not feel included, we suffer. One long-serving and highly respected former colleague experienced this alienation when politics and work collided:

After the 2016 election, my husband took a job on the presidential transition team. In a split second, almost all of my relationships at school came crumbling down. I was alone. I was a ghost in the hallways. No one wanted to interact with me. Certainly no one wanted to hear my voice.

This teacher’s sense of isolation was not at its core ideological—she leaned right on some issues, yet she was dismissive of and repelled by some of Donald Trump’s rhetoric. She did not suddenly find herself in acrimonious rows with her colleagues over policy proposals. Rather, her sudden estrangement was about belonging. It was dizzying to have been securely rooted in a school community for two decades before feeling abruptly cast out. After all, the students we see clinging desperately to each other as they move uneasily down the hallway eventually become us—or, we have always been them. We do not shed our need for social affirmation when we graduate. Evolution has positioned us to privilege group membership.

We teachers occupy positions on either side of the political divide, just like the rest of our fellow citizens. The bravest among us will recognize that the political sorting within our own faculties presents its challenges, but it also presents opportunities. Can a school afford to overlook the fact that a handful of conservative teachers feel a bit marginalized by their left-leaning communities? Certainly. But if it is serious about positioning students to reach across lines of ideological or political divide, it should start by seizing the opportunity this dynamic presents for personal and professional growth. We want our students to have empathy for those with whom they disagree. Let’s try practicing it, ourselves.

While it seems daunting to engage our colleagues—often, our friends—in these matters, it might not be so bad. For months, I’ve been anxious about a possible root canal. I made the mistake of visiting the website of an endodontist, where I read that root canals are unfairly “associated with a great deal of discomfort.” My dread remained intact. During my last visit, my dentist informed me that I “wasn’t out of the woods yet,” so I live with trepidation about this legendarily barbarous invasion of my cuspids.

According to social psychologists Charles Dorison, Julia Minson, and Todd Rogers, though, we humans tend to overestimate our aversion to all sorts of things— not just root canals, but also engaging with the political “other.” Opposing views are not as grating as people think they will be, meaning that when people actually engage in discussion with someone from across the political divide, it’s not the painful ordeal they expected. My experience confirms this finding. “Listening became a gift,” said one attendee of our IDEA meetings. “Colleagues left the space excited and invigorated by our exchanges,” said another. “I was blown away by the candid stories, and I was so impressed by the atmosphere of respect.” And, hyperbolic though it may sound, one right-leaning faculty member wrote, “I really was close to leaving my job…. I think IDEA saved me.” Rather than deflating attendees, our IDEA sessions seemed to have something of a leavening effect.

Perhaps this positive reaction among our faculty speaks to the more optimistic research suggesting that we Americans are not quite as divided as the national narrative would imply. More in Common, as their name optimistically suggests, focuses on threads that bind Americans across party affiliation, with their research, for example, showing that an overwhelming majority of Americans express pride in their American identity—a tie that binds. There is, then, some promise that it’s worth reaching across the lines of divide to rediscover shared values and common goals. It is absolutely imperative, though, that the work begin with us educators. To position our students to meet the challenge of polarization, we have our own homework: readings to do, media sources to vary, bridge-building organizations to discover. And for the truly committed, transformative conversations await within school walls among faculty who may not know each other as well as they once thought.

Through the looking glass of depolarization (part II)

The following also appears in Intrepid Ed.

“Hey Mr. Lenci, want to hear a political joke?” Recess ended, and seventh graders arrived in a flurry of Goldfish crumbs and cold air. Abby, armed with her backpack and a sense of humor, bounced on her feet in anticipation. “So you’re ready for the political joke?” I was. “OK, wait for it.” Pause. “Donald Trump!”

At the time—it must have been the winter of 2016, with the Republican convention still many months away—Donald Trump was a political joke among those across the political spectrum, and here was a student of mine, all twelve years of age, piling it on. I was flooded with questions: Do I laugh this off? Does the ideal of neutrality require that I issue some equivocating statement (“Well, not everyone thinks that…”)? Is there some threshold of political gravitas for a candidate to reach, at which point joking becomes political commentary? Has Trump reached that level? If so, do we need to steer clear? What will other students read into my response? Are there any Goldfish left over?

I think often of that moment. Intuition led me to affirm the jokester (“Ha!”) and move on quickly. But what a difference a year would have made. At what moment did Donald Trump transition from business mogul/reality-show celebrity to legitimate political figure? Once that transition occurred, did new rules of engagement apply to discussing him in school? Was his behavior as a private citizen open to critique within the classroom (in the same way a sports star might be)? Were students and/or faculty then prohibited from commenting on his behavior once he had passed into the realm of the “political?” If so, why? What are the guardrails for political commentary in schools or, more broadly, dialogue across lines of difference?

As far as I am concerned—as I said in the first article in this series-- pretty much everything is “political;” the instinct to stay away from topics or discussions that could be deemed “political” is therefore, I believe, unproductive. Setting aside that assertion for a moment, though, we can hopefully agree that it is advisable to prepare our students to navigate—and possibly mend—our polarized society. It follows, then, that we must provide them opportunities over the course of their education to reach across lines of ideological difference. If we are to lead that work among our students, we too, have our own work to do. A school that values this work must engage in thoughtful professional-development that includes purposeful training and reflection on the part of individual teachers. We educators are products of and participants in the same polarized society that looms ahead for our students. We teachers occupy political echo chambers and rely on one-sided media just like everyone else, and we carry our political and tribal allegiances into the classroom. No playbook reminds us what to say in the event that our twelve-year-old student makes a joke out of the future president of the United States, and the challenge of finding our own way through our polarized society—let alone preparing our students to do so—feels daunting. We need guidance.

At some point, we educators need to hold up a mirror and take stock of our own tribal allegiances and political biases… but that introspection can wait. To ease into the work, we would do well to first study the challenge of polarization from a more detached, intellectual level. The Greater Good Science Center’s “Bridging Differences” initiative is an excellent source for pithy and accessible summaries of research into the psychology of in-group favoritism, and a slew of articles, including “Six Techniques to Bridge Differences” would jumpstart a productive faculty meeting on dialogue across difference. The Pew Research Center provides one-stop shopping to examine the trend of deepening polarization, and Open Mind (“a scalable, evidence-based approach to constructive dialogue”) has assembled a robust library of videos, essays, and scholarly articles organized by theme that could also provide fodder for a faculty discussion. There is no shortage of resources to help us educators understand the challenge of polarization from a psychological and political standpoint. If we are to equip our students for this challenge, we must first understand it.

To bring the challenge closer to home, it works well to present faculty with hypothetical scenarios in which an ideological or political divide insinuates itself into the school community. Should a faculty member be permitted to display emblems that could be considered political? How do we respond to a parent who challenges the presence of those symbols in the classroom? What about the parent who bemoans the dearth of conservative viewpoints at school? Tossing out these types of scenarios virtually guarantees a lively discussion. To keep the train on the tracks, though, requires some structure. I’ve been well served by first asking what is challenging about a given scenario before steering the conversation toward the opportunities inherent in each situation.

A couple of months before the 2020 presidential election, when the national atmosphere could not have been much more tense, I included a “what-if” in one of my workshops:

Imagine it’s November 2020. President Trump has won reelection. A jubilant student comes to school wearing a MAGA hat, although hats are prohibited by the school’s dress code. You are feeling personally vulnerable at this moment, and the hat triggers a visceral response within you. You feel paralyzed by the sight of it. How, if at all, do you engage the child?

 That stirred the pot. The teachers in that particular workshop were anguished at the prospect of a Trump victory, and the word “jubilant” stopped one attendee in her tracks. “Wow,” she said. “That would honestly make me wonder if I belonged at that school.” For months afterward, I found myself returning to her response and the questions it provoked: What does it mean to belong at a school? Does belonging presuppose agreement? What place, if any, is there for a member of the community who holds viewpoints in opposition to the majority?

It’s time for schools to provide a forum for teachers to consider these types of questions, and school leaders should expect to be able to provide answers to some of them; a lively discussion is, for many, also a waste of valuable time if it leads no closer to a shared understanding of how to equip students to navigate our polarized society. Teachers deserve to know what the word “political” means at their school and whether the school believes that “politics” and education mix or whether they are incompatible. Teachers deserve guidance as to whether it is appropriate to share their own political opinions (like many, I am inclined to say probably not; in his essay, “Making a Case For Teacher Political Disclosure,” though, Wayne Journell makes a very creditable case as to why teachers should share their politics with students).

The most vexing question for many of the teachers I’ve talked to comes down to this: Where does it all end? If we encourage students to honor contradictory points of view, do we in essence welcome an endlessly subjective morality in which, in the name of ideological diversity, nothing is out of bounds? Is discrimination now acceptable? Teachers need to be gently led back out of that rabbit hole by their school leaders. Building our sense of empathy for those who hold contradictory worldviews does not require us to dilute our standards of care and respect. Do we allow a child to carry a Nazi banner into school to prove that competing ideologies are welcome? Of course not. We don’t, because such as emblem is irredeemably offensive, and no reasonable person would consider it to represent a legitimate perspective that deserves to be aired among school children. It’s OK to draw lines in the sand. And to the school leaders or teachers who then ask, But how are we supposed to know what is and is not acceptable in this realm? Who decides? The answer is, you do. 

I am somewhat uneasy that, for many educators, the challenge of polarization feels less urgent that it did a year ago when all sights were set on the impending presidential election. There’s less risk of another Abby coming into class with her political joke this fall and, consequently, causing a stir that reminds us of our national divide. But the divide has not gone anywhere, it will not mend itself, and our students must be equipped to face it. If anything, the current, slightly less combustible political moment may in fact be all the more reason for us to carefully and thoughtfully curate opportunities for our students to reach across lines of divide; we may not be ambushed by flare-ups of ideological disagreement, so let’s be sure to offer students opportunities to practice their bridge-building skills for all the flare-ups that will come their way. The journey towards depolarization begins in schools, where the work, by necessity, starts with adults.

Through the looking glass of depolarization (part I)

The following also appears in Intrepid Ed.

If I learned nothing else during my twenty years as a middle school teacher, it was that humans of that age are intensely social, almost single-mindedly hellbent on securing a slot in the social order. The fortunes of these young people can change quickly. Monday morning might find them unaccountably excised from a previously secure group of friends, leaving them bewildered and bereft. To guard against such eventualities, they lock arms as they march down the hallway like a steamrolling wave of social security. For many years, I was quite sure this behavior was unique. It was not until I had taught these children for two decades and coached forty-one seasons of sports that I realized, however, that I had been mistaken. In fact, the intense need for social affirmation and acceptance that defines middle school is not a stage through which one passes. It is not a skin to be shed on the way out of adolescence. It’s training. We are the products of that training.

We are also the victims of it. We have become a polarized society, bound unconditionally to those on our political team and mistrustful and dismissive of those on the other side. We cling to our teammates, with whom we share a common purpose, and we recoil from our opponents. We display tribal badges to reserve our place on the team and we rage at the sight of our opponents’ markings. The evidence of our national polarization and the dysfunction it causes is everywhere, so obvious now that it hardly requires explanation.

It’s tempting to lay the blame for our current malaise at the feet of Donald Trump, the nation’s most divisive president, because in that case our affliction may be fleeting—or even a thing of the past. Alas, President Trump’s polarizing effect—and his embodiment of our own polarization—affirms a trend that was already well in the works. The forces that drive our polarization are deep. We are hardwired to seek group acceptance, and societal structures leverage that psychology to more deeply entrench us in a morass of division. Our national condition, this debilitating polarization, is not mending, and we owe it to both our students and our society to address the crisis through education.

One could make a transactional case (I come to your school, and in return I get this skill) for empowering students to reach across lines of ideological or political division. In a nation, as the author Bill Bishop put it, of “balkanized communities whose inhabitants find other Americans to be culturally incomprehensible,” students will benefit from any training that helps them ford the divide. Will the kid from New England be willing to take that job down South some day? Depends how comfortable she would feel living among the “others” across the Mason Dixon line. As with any other literacy, or a foreign language, it’s reasonable to believe that students who have some facility for cross-cutting communication and collaboration will expand their otherwise narrowing options for employment, housing, and companionship.

Our students individually will require the skills and dispositions to help them reach across lines of divide, but the plain, inescapable truth is that our country also requires this of them. As the nation absorbed the Capitol insurrection of January 2021, a Twitter post read, “Every person knocking down those doors once sat in a classroom.” There will always be conspiratorially-minded people, and we will not eradicate extremism. But an attack on the seat of American government, perpetrated by Americans proudly waving American flags, reveals a societal disconnect so profound that it would be a dereliction of duty for educators to ignore the polarization that fueled it.

Long ago, I heard someone say that schools sacrifice the important for the urgent. We’ve certainly been facing the urgent: navigating a pandemic and helping students make sense of longstanding inequities that have given rise to grief-laden protests. But we must also turn to another (really) important matter: providing the foundation and training to equip our students to eventually ameliorate the polarization that, at this rate, threatens to undermine the very lessons upon which we are focused. Do we think we’ll address climate change strictly through the transmission of scientific facts, willfully blind to the furious political disagreement that topic engenders? How do we propose to do so, when higher scientific literacy is associated with more disagreement about the issue, rather than less? Do we truly aspire to build equitable and inclusive communities? I can’t see how that will happen without acknowledging the polarization that has suddenly – and, for many of us, surprisingly-- turned “DEI” into a highly charged political term.

Education is not necessarily a ticket to depolarization. Ideological polarization is consistently more pronounced among better-educated people, and, according to Diana Mutz, those with graduate degrees have the least political disagreement in their lives. We school people bend over backwards to insulate our communities from all things “political,” when, in fact, it’s a futile effort. Our curriculum is “political.” Our messaging is “political.” We are preparing—or relinquishing our duty to prepare—our students to navigate a “political” world. And certainly, we ourselves are “political.”

To get serious, then, about equipping our students to reach across lines of ideological or political divide, we need to take a long, hard look in the mirror. In recent years, independent schools have accepted that if they are to be places of anti-racist work, the professionals leading that work—teachers—must do their own learning. The same holds for the work that will position our students to ease the crisis of political polarization: it starts with us. What do we adults know about the psychology that drives group behavior? How healthy and varied is our news diet? Do we understand how media leverages our tribal instincts to amplify messaging? As we ask students to enter into discussions with those who hold contradictory viewpoints, have we, ourselves, practiced taking winning off the table by entering into dialogue with the political “other”? Do we even acknowledge that political diversity exists among our faculty?

I once found myself in a faculty meeting in which we teachers were challenged to create a “portrait of the graduate.” The expectations were loose—creativity encouraged—with the goal to visually represent a successful graduate of our academic program. It was backwards design: picturing the end product in order to more precisely and purposefully define the academic program to lead us there. Since then, I have seen many iterations of the “portrait of a graduate” etched into the websites of variety of schools. In most cases, schools use the word “portrait” loosely, relying on text to describe the key attributes of a successful graduate. Perhaps there is also value, though, in taking a more literal approach by showcasing a real human being whose lived experiences might guide our own aspirations.

Arlie Russell Hochschild could be that person. A sociology professor at the University of California, Hochschild authored a masterclass in empathy called Strangers in Their Own Land. Hochschild is liberal—a left-leaning professor in the Prius-driving, organics-eating Bay Area of California. She registered voters in Mississippi as a young woman during the Freedom Summer of 1964, and progressive causes continue to animate her, including paid parental leave, environmental stewardship, and an end to homelessness. Hochschild is principled. And yet, she is curious—deeply, genuinely curious—about people who see the world differently from her. This curiosity carried her to southern Louisiana for several years to puzzle over what she called the Great Paradox: the seemingly illogical attitude of people who disdained and distanced themselves from the federal government, when, Hochschild believed, government care and attention could ameliorate their substandard living conditions. “I was discovering good people at the center of this Great Paradox,” she wrote. “How could kindly Madonna oppose government help for the poor? How could a warm, bright, thoughtful man like Mike Schaff, a victim of corporate malfeasance and wanton destruction, aim so much of his fire at the federal government?” To read Strangers, one is consistently reminded of Hochschild’s relentless attempt to scale what she calls the “empathy wall” that cleaves our society.

This is the wall our students will have to scale, and they will not learn how to do it without help from their teachers. It follows, then, that we educators must take on the work of emulating people like Arlie Russell Hochschild. Having left the classroom two years ago, my job these days is convincing schools that we educators must take responsibility for addressing the crisis of polarization, and in coming articles I’ll lay out some suggestions, based on my experience and on the research, about how we can position faculty to lead those efforts. Friends School of Baltimore, from which I graduated, says, “The world needs what our children can do.” Our country, plagued by polarization, desperately needs what our children can do, if only we can find the courage and commitment to help them do it.

The Trump conundrum: can we criticize the president and still welcome ideological diversity?

Four and a half years ago, I wrote a piece that caused a stir (well, at least within the tiny network in which it circulated). I find myself returning now to that piece, wondering whether it reads differently after the passage of a presidential term and realizing that the questions I ponder daily first presented themselves as I wrote it.

Is it possible for an educator to criticize the words or actions of the president—or a candidate for president, or any other aspiring leader—and still foster a learning environment that welcomes ideological or political diversity? Can we be surgical in our commentary, by critiquing one aspect of a leader’s messaging while still encouraging the support of other elements of that official’s platform? In other words, is there room for complexity, or must we be reduced to either “supporting” or “opposing” the entirety of a candidate or official’s personality and platform? Does reserving a critique—maintaining silence—marginalize some students (or is it now more appropriate to ask whether reserving such a critique has marginalized many of our students in many of our schools)?

Recently, I watched a webinar in which presenters openly criticized President Trump’s campaign to discredit the results of the presidential election, and I was struck by how direct the condemnation was. The webinar was facilitated by an organization that wanted no part of my writing piece four and a half years ago. Has something changed? Would the directness of my writing seem less inflammatory or controversial these days?

I wrote the piece as a conversation with my students, although I did not necessarily intend to share it with them. And in the end, I did not. I worried about violating the oath of impartiality, and I still believe firmly in the conventional wisdom that we educators should remain nonpartisan in the classroom. But does that mean we should also be amoral? And do we really lack the will or dexterity to help students see that the objectionable rhetoric of a single man does not by extension impugn a whole political party?

For those with time on their hands, I include the piece below, with the hope that readers will share their thoughts with me by dropping a note in the “contact” section of this website. Is there a place, in a school that genuinely wishes to honor ideological differences, for this sort of direct talk? We need to figure this out together.

March 4, 2016                                                           

Dear Students,

I recently spoke to you about a Holocaust survivor who used to visit. She was tiny and understated, but when she spoke, the weight of her courage and resilience and overwhelming moral clarity settled down from above. She always left us with a single request: that we act in the face of injustice. This is a message I have dispensed throughout many years of teaching, but it is my turn to speak up.

Civility—common courtesy, you might say—is in short supply in this presidential campaign, and insults have filled the vacuum. Mr. Trump, in particular, has been a reliable source of vitriol. There was a time when I joined the majority of the country in laughing off Mr. Trump’s antics, but I’m not laughing anymore. As his popularity grows—and as we adults fail to weigh in on the matter—I worry that you might start to think that this sort of discourse is becoming the accepted norm. Well, at least as far as your school is concerned, it is not. Our school’s mission guides you toward respectful communication, and you should be proud of your ongoing commitment to maintaining the highest standards of respect as you interact with the world. As you look for examples of respectful communication, though, look beyond the presidential campaign. Because at the moment you will not find respect modeled by some of our nation’s most visible, aspiring leaders.

Note, too, the growing ease with which many Americans openly fear, or demonize, or just disparage, the “other.” We teachers work constantly to stretch your perception of those with whom you have little contact, but this seems to be precisely the opposite approach to the one Mr. Trump has taken on the campaign trail. Those who like Mr. Trump tend to resolutely praise his frankness; they believe he speaks the plain truth. On this count, though, I beg to differ. Mr. Trump tells people what they wish were true, and, in that respect, he reminds me of other, dangerous, charismatic leaders who have indulged wishful thinking. The most insidious of these claims, as far as I am concerned, is that the “outsiders” are to blame for our troubles.

Mr. Trump is now appealing to the simplistic stereotypes that many Americans harbor, particularly about immigrants. His proposals appear to run in direct opposition to the values I have heard you articulate here at school. In your history class, you consider what it means to be American, and you have generally suggested that freedoms, rights, liberties lie at the center of the American identity. You are all well aware—perhaps more so than Mr. Trump—of the protection the First Amendment places on freedom of religion.

Mr. Trump has not just stirred mistrust of Muslims, but of foreigners in general, regardless of religion. His rhetoric models a form of disrespect that is antithetical to our school’s core principles. We don’t just tolerate diversity. We celebrate it. We honor it. We bring in performances to bolster our exposure to other cultures. We learn languages. We unearth differing points of view. We talk about race and gender, and we celebrate diverse family structures. Building cultural competence is central to our school’s mission. So, to be clear, I’m trying to show you that there is a mismatch between Mr. Trump’s comments and your school’s core philosophy. But, I must say that I am alarmed for reasons that stretch beyond that mismatch.

To understand that, we need to get back to our visitor, the tiny woman who survived five different concentration camps. Before the Holocaust, even before World War Two broke out, there was unhappiness in Germany. Germans had troubles, and they looked for solutions. One political party, known as the Nazis, promised to bring strong leadership to the ailing country. Some Germans, as Facing History and Ourselves wrote in Holocaust and Human Behavior, “…liked the Nazis’ message. It was patriotic… and energetic.” That message relied heavily on portraying the “outsider” as a danger to the country. The first Nazi party platform included a proposal to ban immigration entirely. “Outsiders” were to be feared. The seeds of mistrust were being planted.

People tend to think of the Nazis as a malignant growth that suddenly appeared on the German body, metastasizing into an uncontrollable sickness that overtook the nation. In fact, they were elected, fair and square, as a consequence of the German suffering and outrage that lingered well after World War One. Nazis won seats in the legislature, and Hitler was later appointed Chancellor of Germany. Once in power, Hitler did not spring the Holocaust on Germany all at once. Instead, he moved gradually, incrementally, to restrict the rights of Jews in Germany. They couldn’t vote… they couldn’t gather together without a Nazi overseer… bit by bit, Jews lost their rights, and at no time was German society shocked into outrage and action to oppose these moves. This was the legacy that our friend, the Holocaust survivor, thought about daily when she urged us to speak up in the face of injustice.

Last year, as spring sunlight streamed into our dining room, a colleague asked me over lunch whether I thought the Holocaust could ever happen again. I was undecided. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that the moral arc of the universe “bends toward justice.” Most of us would suppose that, in the decades since the Holocaust, we have evolved as a civilization, that, even if we are not at peace, we are at least less likely to succumb to utter barbarism on the scale of the Holocaust; we have proceeded farther along the moral arc of the universe. Perhaps. In her book, I promised I Would Tell, Holocaust survivor Sonia Weitz warned, “Those of us who survived that other universe where darkness was almost complete have an obligation to warn you, because we know that under the right conditions it can happen again, anywhere, to any people.”

I sometimes wonder if my curriculum is like an obscure constellation that remains slightly out of focus to you; I sprinkle points of light throughout the year, hoping you will connect the dots. In the fall, we asked you to lead younger students through a role-play in which you empowered them to act as upstanders. I evoked that word—upstander—again recently while discussing the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School. Did you connect those two discussions? Will you then, on your own, draw a line to the film Freedom Riders? In it, a reporter asks a young, white man why he thinks it’s his responsibility to press for equality. “I think it’s every American’s responsibility,” answers the young man. “I only think that some are more conscious of their responsibility than others.” I wonder: have we Americans lost sight of our responsibilities? As you navigate your universe, we are here to help you find the constellations that will guide you. After all, morality is not infinitely subjective, and we teachers need to help you connect the dots so that you can continue, with compassion, on your journey.

If King was right that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, it is also true that it doesn’t bend that way by itself.

Go ahead. Get into politics at school.

I once led a workshop with middle-school students that was to serve as a deep dive into the Constitution. In the final run-up to the workshop, I received several anxious emails asking that I avoid mentioning any particular politician. The school looked forward to me teaching the first Article of the Constitution, but there would be no need to name names. The message in being invited to teach about the presidency without naming the president—the same message I have consistently encountered in my twenty years in schools—was clear: we don’t get into politics.

I get it. Politics is messy. But it’s time for schools to stop conflating the examination of politics with partisanship. We have our own biases, and we must work hard to temper those. Agreed. We are not in the business of molding students in our ideological images. But if our collective strategy for maintaining impartiality is to shy away from teaching about government, discussing those who govern, and examining the issues that shape our collective experience, we are doing our students a grave disservice. The political landscape appears littered with landmines, but we must also see the clear opportunities before us.

First, the obvious: it’s a great time to bring civic education to life. An impeachment! A raging debate over the role of the federal government in managing a pandemic! Unprecedented protests! An election! Truly, and I say this without irony, it’s an exciting time to be teaching. At some level, I think we all know we should be seizing the moment, but the moment feels scary. We are afraid of how parents will react when they hear only part of the story about the day’s discussion, we’re skittish about revealing our own biases to students and worried about causing a scene in our classrooms. We can take steps to mitigate these worries, though.

Let’s bring parents into the loop. Let’s keep them updated on the conversations their children are having in school and invite them to share their hopes and concerns, rather than defending ourselves from attack later on. Let’s practice what we preach by working, ourselves, to honor ideological differences (see the previous post for more on that), and, above all, let us not be too afraid of making a mistake. We’re uncomfortable, because we feel ill-equipped to handle contentious or wounding speech, should it emerge in a “political” discussion. Yes, this is difficult. But this is also precisely the education our students desperately need. We simply cannot observe our national disfunction, our unwillingness to reach across lines of ideological divide, and conclude that the best course of action is to shield our students from disagreement or contentious discourse.

Schools have twisted themselves in knots, trying to tiptoe down some imaginary line that separates the merely “topical” from the “political.” Everything is political. Free speech, inequality, the locus of government power, climate change… even science itself—they are all political—and in this tricky, anxious, and exciting electoral season we should be purposefully leading our students through the work that will help them more capably navigate our nation’s political divide.

Know your students. Even the ones in MAGA hats.

Recently, I asked teachers in a workshop to discuss hypothetical scenarios related to this fall’s electoral season. One of those scenarios imagined a student proudly brandishing MAGA gear in celebration of a Trump victory, a possibility that left many in attendance feeling anxious. The ensuing discussion revealed a disconnect between left-leaning teachers and the sometimes more conservative families whose children they educate. “To see a child celebrate a Trump victory,” summarized one teacher, “would make me wonder whether I ever really knew these families at all.”

Early in my career a wise mentor conveyed a simple trick to keep me in the good graces of even the scariest of parents: know their children. Connection lies at the heart of our mission as educators, and the most impactful teachers know that job number one is to teach the child, not the subject. Beyond the instinctive moves that guide an effective teacher’s daily interactions with students, we must sometimes do some homework. Many of us, for example, are digging into anti-racist literature as one step down the path of better serving children of color. Getting to know our students is a joyful, instinctive process, but it’s not just a matter of friendly banter. It takes work, and that work extends to the realm of ideological or political divisions.

We have so much on our plates. For some of us, a win these days is simply keeping our masks from slipping and our glasses from fogging. The pandemic is exhausting, and the election is daunting. We certainly don’t need any more work, but, if we’re facing the truth, we have it. We simply cannot in good conscience allow this election to slip past by keeping our heads down and avoiding the drama. (Nor, by the way, should we fool ourselves into thinking our national divisiveness and discomfort will wane one bit in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. We can be sure that no matter who occupies the Oval Office in the coming years, the divisions that plague the country will not heal themselves. Consequently, the mandate to educate our children in a way that empowers them to mend—or at least navigate—those divisions will remain.)

So where does this leave us? If we’re speaking frankly, it leaves many schools in my neck of the woods with a preponderance of left-leaning teachers who serve a more politically mixed clientele of families. This is a source of friction, and it’s the dynamic that fueled the question as to whether a teacher “ever really knew these families.” If the challenge is an ideologically divided country—and possibly an ideologically divided school—the opportunity is, as it always is, to better know our students. This includes the ones who might show up at school in a MAGA hat the day after a Trump victory.

This work need not overwhelm us. We simply need to start by assuming best intentions. If we can chip away at our mistrust of the “other” and assume that a divergent political stance is the product of a sincerely-held belief that we may not yet understand, we can tiptoe in the direction of common ground. When I lead workshops, I suggest that people start with their news feed. Allsides provides a range of news sources for every major story of the day, while the Flip Side focuses on a single event and packages news snippets from across the political spectrum. For a handy mobile app, try Read Across the Aisle, which provides access to the full spectrum of news sources and then helps you monitor where your news choices fall on that continuum. If those steps wet your whistle, wade a bit deeper into the work by engaging in conversation with people who hold contradictory views. Living Room Conversations facilitates such opportunities, and Braver Angels conducts online debates and conversations on contentious topics. This work is not easy—I found it quite taxing to listen to the arguments of fervent NRA members during an online discussion of the Second Amendment—but it is worthwhile. We simply can’t strengthen these muscles without doing some lifting.

Trying out these tools for a few weeks will not magically fill in the gulf that divides us. Doing so might, however, make someone just a bit more openminded, and that mental disposition is a prerequisite for better understanding children who come from families with political viewpoints that contradict our own.