Teachers should be sharing their politics with each other. Here how and why.
I recently heard of a parent who, envisioning the year ahead, said her one hope was that her child would learn to talk to people with whom she disagreed. I have a hunch she’s not alone. Political polarization feels ever more acute, and divisions fueled by disagreement over incendiary issues such as the Hamas attack and subsequent retaliation by Israel have left gaping wounds in many school communities.
Parents have good reason to hope their children will learn to speak civilly and productively with those across the divide, and educators want this for their students. It is my strong belief, though, that to deliver these skill sets, we adults need to sharpen them ourselves. Teachers must become the bridge-building models their students will emulate.
Research confirms what simple intuition would suggest: that we need to get to know the people with whom we disagree. Studies find personal stories to be more persuasive than facts, and researchers behind the Strengthening Democracy Challenge found that political animosity is eased by exposing people to the stories of likeable folks from across the aisle. The strategy works in the lab, and it works in real life.
I know, because I have led teachers through the practice of sharing stories across the political divide. In my final year at Brookwood School in Massachusetts, I was fortunate enough to partner with teachers who were willing to gather and listen carefully to the narratives of their colleagues. You might call these “political origin stories”—tales of forming worldviews—about which attendees could then ask follow-up questions and reflect back what they had heard (for more, see chapter 7 of my book, Learning to Depolarize).
Those who shared stories felt rejuvenated and buoyed by the experience, while many of those who listened found themselves similarly refreshed. “Listening became a gift,” said one attendee of the gatherings. “Colleagues left the space excited and invigorated by our exchanges,” said another. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
This past school year, I joined the Civi Coalition, a network of educators in western New York, to lead a similar activity. During the second half-hour of monthly, virtual meetings, attendees could choose to join the “bridging” breakout room, featuring an educator sharing their political origin stories—stories of family members, and lessons learned in college, and the pressure to conform to the expectations of a political tribe. As had been the case with our gatherings at Brookwood, those who shared felt validated and unburdened, while those who listened came to understand and respect those with whom they might have disagreed.
This model—of educators gathering in person or virtually to share with each other the origins of their political beliefs—is easily replicable, if unusual. It’s not hard to imagine the questions: Is it even professional development? Where is the pedagogical expert and the takeaway to implement Monday morning? Is it even appropriate to talk about politics? If so, what’s the point? Indeed, what I describe is unorthodox, but I would suggest that no one who observes our national condition could say that we educators are producing citizens who are equipped to reach across lines of disagreement to solve our seemingly intractable challenges. That work starts with us.
If it does, the experience should adhere to a handful of principles: First, it should be voluntary. For a host of reasons, little good—and possibly a furious backlash-- will come from forcing unwilling participants into an experience such as this. On the other hand, providing the opportunity for those who choose it is likely to spread seeds of growth beyond the initial cohort. Secondly, it should be designed and marketed as primarily a listening exercise, rather than a “conversation.” We don’t need more opportunities to engage in unproductive back-and-forths across the political divide, but we do need to discover the humanity in those with whom we disagree. We also need to practice the habits—such as listening—that we value in our students.
Thirdly, the experience should be tightly structured to ensure the emphasis on listening, with a time limit imposed for the sharing of stories and with each step of the process laid out in advance and faithfully implemented by the moderator. Those steps should include a time for follow-up questions and a separate period to reflect back what attendees have learned. Affirmation comes from being met with questions of genuine curiosity as well as meaningful responses to the sharing of one’s story, and affirmation, in contract to contempt, is a critical ingredient in softening lines of divide.
The cohort could be within a school, as it was at Brookwood, or it could connect teachers within some broader network, such as the Civi Coalition in New York. A prerequisite is some degree of political heterogeneity, and schools that find themselves loaded with teachers of one political stripe may be good candidates for the latter approach (although I would also suggest that the faculties at most schools are more politically diverse than they might appear; even a very small number of teachers in the political minority are enough—if they are willing participants—to help launch this sort of initiative).
What could come of it? A proper study might help us determine if we were effecting the outcomes we sought: to increase the appetite among teachers to engage across the political divide and, consequently, wider and more purposeful implementation of measures to help students develop their own bridging tendencies. Until such a study materializes, we’ll have to follow our instincts. Experience tells me that providing a cross-cutting forum for teachers to share personal stories has the effect of bridging the political divide. It seems likely to me that, armed with this experience, those teachers will be more likely to help their students discover similar opportunities. At that point, we might just begin to meet the need, expressed by that parent I recently heard of, to teach kids how to talk with those with whom they disagree.
