What's the Big Idea?

Teaching the Election and Civic Engagement

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0:00 | 49:23

In which Dan talks about how teachers can feel prepared and empowered to teach and talk about the upcoming election. He's joined by Erica Hodgin from Facing History & Ourselves, truly the gold standard for approaching difficult history and civic topics in K-12 classrooms.

This election will bring unique opportunities and challenges for all teachers (not just social studies teachers!) and meeting this moment means thinking about ourselves, our classrooms, and how we'll foster civil discourse when emotionally charged topics come up.

Even more than that, Erica discusses why it's vital to engage young people in the democratic process and civic life beyond textbooks.

Mentioned in the episode:

From Facing History

Music: We Have a Tripod 

SPEAKER_00

So just like learning to ride a bike or drive a car, we wouldn't just read about it, right? We we have to actually get behind the wheel and practice it with support, with scaffolding, right? But I think that's the same as it is with civic participation. We want young people in school to have opportunities to participate. And that might look like, you know, identifying an issue that they care about, researching that, and then maybe sharing what they've learned with an audience that is relevant, right, to that issue, raising awareness about the issue, encouraging other people to sort of understand the impact of that issue. Learning how to do that while they're in school, they have the support of teachers and peers to really think about that. And as we talked about earlier, they also have the exposure to other people who may think differently about that issue.

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to What's the Big Idea? I'm your host, Dan Carney. One of the most challenging but ultimately rewarding days of my teaching profession came on September 30th, 2020. This was the day after the first presidential debate between then-President Donald Trump and his challenger Joe Biden. That probably feels like a lifetime ago, so you'll be forgiven if you can't remember the debate. But the short of it is it was pretty much a disaster. The amount of interrupting, crosstalk, and just plain rude behavior, mostly by one of the candidates, made for a pretty sad display of the democratic process. I'm a social studies teacher, and we were talking about the election. And coming into school the next day, it was time to talk about the debate. Most of, if not all, of my students had watched the debate, and some have even gone back and watched the highlights again. It was a pretty mixed group in terms of family political affiliation, and I had a difficult decision to make about addressing the debate. I'll be honest, the safe thing would have been to get in and get out. Yes, there was a debate, here are some of the issues they talked about. Let's move on. I should also add here that this was during the pandemic and some students were listening in online, which means undoubtedly some of their family members were too. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that not leaning into the debate conversation was missing an opportunity. Here was the American democratic process, worse than all, for the world to see, and if I wasn't going to use it to bring specifics and history home for these students, when would I? It turned out to be one of the more dynamic 45 minutes I've ever spent with a group of students, as we broke down everything from the candidates' content to their style to the ties they were wearing. There were some strong feelings, no doubt, and it was fascinating to see in my students as the partisan divide play out in terms of how they saw the same thing in starkly different ways. But we emerged from that class as a closer group. I really believe that my students were both more engaged in the election and had more trust in me following that class. Look, I'm not going to take too much credit here. I've had some brilliant mentors in my career, and I've had the chance to use some incredible resources that prepared me for moments just like that. If you've been listening to this show, you know I'm a huge fan of Facing History and ourselves, a Boston-based organization that is, as far as I'm concerned, the gold standard for teaching about hard topics in history and civics in the social studies in English classrooms. A few years ago, I interviewed Karen Murphy about facing history's approach. And last year I spoke with Yehuda Potok, a rabbi who works at facing history, about the threat of anti-Semitism and how we can take that on in the classroom. On today's show, I'm speaking with Erica Hodgins, the director of civic education at Facing History, about the organization's philosophy and approach on civics, and its incredible bank of resources and professional development. Erica had so much wisdom to share with me about how we educators can start with ourselves and build a democratic classroom as prepared for the hard conversations that come with teaching about this country in a year when everything seems to be on the line. Please check the show notes for resources mentioned in our conversation. I can't overstate the high quality of facing history and the way they will help you as an educator and ultimately your students. Okay, here's Erica Hodgin.

SPEAKER_00

So my name's Erica Hodgin, and I'm the director of civic education at Facing History and ourselves. And before that, I co-directed the Civic Engagement Research Group at the University of Riverside. So in that role, I was conducting research focused on K-12 civic education and working with district schools and teachers to integrate civic learning. And prior to that, I was a middle school and high school social studies and English language arts teacher.

SPEAKER_02

We're recording this interview during the week of the Democratic National Convention. I'm curious what you make of a convention, Republican or Democratic, as it pertains to civic engagement. How uh conventions impact the way students or just people in general see civics and the democratic process?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, I do think the exciting opportunity of a convention, of an election season, is that it does give teachers and students an opportunity to really look at democracy in action, right? To sort of see what are the different, you know, processes that lead up to election. It's not just about election day. You go to a, you know, a voting booth and you vote, right? There's all these different steps in the process. I think it gives teachers and students an opportunity to explore why might that be? How do we even get to the place where we have a candidate? What does that look like? What are the processes in place? And I think it's also important for teachers and students to ask questions about, you know, not only why are these, you know, sort of like steps and processes in place, but what do I think about that? Do I feel like I have a voice in that process or how might I have a voice in that process? I do think it's important for young people, regardless of their age or, you know, eligibility status, to really feel like they can play a role in and around elections that can be in learning about it and having conversations with other people, raising awareness about things that matter to them that they think should be talked about at the convention or, you know, should be on the ballot. I think all of those things are really important for young people to see the ways in which voting is one way of participating, but there are lots of, there's a range of ways to also be engaged during an election season and through all these different steps and processes.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. There's something so stagecraft about or stagecrafted about the conventions, you know, and so it's this interesting mix of um policy and the democratic process and entertainment. And so that's why I was kind of wondering how you see its role there. Um I want to ask about the state of civics education, broadly speaking, before we get into facing history. I feel like about once a year we get the alarmist um media reports about 25% of Americans can name all three branches of government, things of that nature. For where you sit, what is the state of civics education today in America?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I would say there is some concerning, as you were saying, the kind of you know alarm bells that we hear, which I think are very real and important to recognize and pay attention to. So I think there's some real challenges, and I also think there's some hope and opportunities. So I guess I would start with the kind of bad news, which is I think that, you know, we do see from research that there are large numbers of students that are not receiving the civic education that we would, you know, say is really necessary to support informed and also active participation in civic and political life. Um, I think that, you know, in recent decades in particular, college and career preparation has really left very little room for the civic preparation of young people. You know, schools have always played an important role in preparing young people to participate in democracy. That was one of the pillars of establishing public schools in the United States. Um, and now we sort of see that civics courses are quite rare. You know, you might find that students only take a semester of American government in high school, you know, kind of the last semester of 12th grade. Um and and that I think is an important foundational knowledge, but it doesn't always, you know, kind of fully attend to the full range of what we think of as what it means to participate in community and society. Um, and we also see from research that there is a lack of robust civic education, especially in schools that are serving low-income communities, communities of color, immigrant communities. So we're seeing, you know, that there's real inequities in terms of who has access to civic education that I think is incredibly important to think about. So we think about yes, we want more civic education, but we also want to make sure that it's equitably available to all young people. Um, we also are seeing that in terms of civic education, there's just increasing pressure. I'm sure many educators that are part of your community are feeling this, but I think with the kind of, you know, rising political polarization, political pressures, there's an overall decline in attention to civic priorities or even just stress and anxiety about talking about civic or political issues in schools. I think RAN just came out with a study recently, the RAN Corporation, and they found that 65% of teachers nationally are deciding to limit their discussion of political and social issues. And this is even in states where they don't have any kind of legislation to kind of say that you shouldn't be talking about these issues. So I think there's a real, you know, understandable stress and anxiety, you know, in terms of is my administration going to support me, my school or district leaders, will I get concerns from parents, those kinds of things. So I really do think now, more than ever, educators need high-quality resources, they need strong support, they need to be in conversation with each other about what does this look like, what does it mean, how can I, you know, implement this in ways that work for my students in my community. But I would say on the hopeful side of things that there is some momentum. I think with the kind of rising polarization, I think with concerns about the health of our democracy or the kind of pivotal moment in our democracy, people are really seeing civic education not as the only solution, but as one right way in which to kind of attend to repairing our democracy. So we're seeing new initiatives and new legislation in different states across the country. Um, you know, as many folks may know, some states have been passing legislation around a diploma seal for students to be recognized for civic education. So I think there's some really promising opportunities and space to really think about, you know, how can civic education organizations partner with schools and districts to lend more support. And of course, we know there are incredible teachers out there doing this work despite all of the challenges. So I think there's some concerns and challenges and also some momentum and really important um opportunities for us to think about.

SPEAKER_02

Maybe now's a good time to bring in facing history. I have to say, as a teacher that's used resources from facing history for years, it is one of the gold standards for a history civics teacher. Um, I'll be linking all the resources in the show notes so the listener can go and check all this out. Um before we get into some of the particulars, how would you describe Facing History's approach to teaching civics?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, I am so excited to join, you know, the Civics team and the team generally at Facing History. Um, I think I used uh Facing History's materials as a teacher as well. And I mean, I think as you and and many others know that that facing history and ourselves has really, you know, had civic education or building students inform civic responsibility at the core of their work for decades. Um, that they're really, you know, we really are thinking about how can we not only build students civic knowledge, but also skills and the dispositions and capacities for thinking about connecting with others, discussing issues across differences, and to participate, right? What does it mean to really participate? So facing history's resources from the historical case studies that we have. We also have a lot of current event resources. I think our focus is really to teach students to discern facts from information to help them connect history to the world around them today. We also really want to support students to engage with empathy and to engage constructively with others who differ from them and maybe identity and experience and perspective. And, you know, I think we also our approach to civic education is really guided by what we kind of call as our pedagogical triangle, which really at the three points of the triangle, we're really thinking about intellectual rigor that we're engaging students' minds. We're also thinking about emotional engagement, we're engaging them, you know, through their hearts and that kind of reflection. And then also ethical reflection. How does this connect a student's conscience? And at the center of that triangle is really building students' informed civic responsibility. So our approach is really holistic, it's integrated, it's more than just curriculum, right? We can sort of also see our schools as a microcosm of democracy. It's where students often build a lot of civic and democratic skills just by participating in their classroom and their school.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, one of the building blocks of your um of your resources is establishing a democratic classroom before you can do anything else in the civic space, building a classroom that feels like a microcosm of democracy, as you say. How can teachers do that? That might feel maybe a little bit grandiose to someone listening. Uh, you know, what does a democratic classroom mean to you?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's such a great question. And I do this is one of the things that I really love about facing history is that it really is, I think in many of our resources, we're helping to support teachers to not only start with, you know, how do we build a democratic classroom, but also how do you start with yourself, right? How do you as a teacher begin by thinking about self-reflection, sort of understanding what you are bringing to the table, the lens that you maybe bring, how do you facilitate conversations and learning? And then there's this idea of building community and trust. So one of the ways that we recommend and support teachers to kind of create and sustain democratic norms in the classroom is through contracting. So one of the things you can do in the very beginning of the year is to co-create a contract with your students to sort of think about as a community of learners, what is it that we feel we need to do in order to support each other to learn and to engage with each other over the course of the year? And I would say it's not just something at the beginning of the year, it's also something that you can revisit and come back to, especially as you are about to maybe engage in a conversation about a current event or a controversial topic that you think may be emotionally charged or challenging for students. And I wouldn't say you should start with that topic in day one, right? So again, building the classroom community, but also building those skills for civil discourse. What does it mean to build skills to not only share my perspective, but to listen to your perspective? And if I disagree with you, how do I do that in a respectful way? It doesn't mean I'm gonna silence my perspective, but how do we, how do we coexist, right, in that sort of and how do we keep the kind of complexity of multiple perspectives around these range of issues? So I think it's building those skills and building up to right kinds of conversations or the depth and complexity of maybe dealing with a controversial issue in the classroom.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I remember a guest I had years ago saying that one of the beautiful things about school is that it's for many people, it might be the only time in their lives when they are consistently in rooms with people who disagree with their opinions. Because we know once we leave school, it's very easy to go into your own world, your own bubble surround yourself with uh people and ideas that reinforce your own. I'm so glad you brought up to start with yourself.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

It's a foundational piece of everything in facing history. I was even interviewing a kindergarten teacher recently, not about facing history, just about her work in the classroom. You brought up that idea that's also foundational to being a teacher that connects with your students. You have to understand your own uh biases, your own triggers, your own worldview in civics, particularly uh, and I want to get to the role of current events and controversial topics.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Why is it important for teachers to spend a bit of time? And facing history has some great resources to actually guide teachers through this process. Why is it so important that we reflect on our own beliefs before we enter the classroom space to address these topics?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think it's such a great question. And I do believe that the process of not only thinking about our own beliefs and our own bias, but also our own identities, our own lived experiences. And how does that create opportunities to connect with students and maybe some gaps in our own understanding, right? That we may want to, you know, stretch and extend ourselves to understand more, but also to recognize that students are bringing expertise, right? They're not only bringing their identities and their lived experiences, but they themselves are bringing expertise to the classroom, right? So how can we, you know, I think think about how we connect and build bridges between, you know, the role of the teacher, which is like you're clearly responsible for supporting your classroom and making sure that things function, you have a responsibility in that position, but you can also share voice and agency with students, right? So I think doing that kind of self-reflection can really help to not only understand maybe my biases and blind spots, but also where where is their space, right, for students to really lead and have a voice in the process of our learning in thinking about sort of crafting questions about how we might dive into things that are aligned to my course goals and um and learning objectives for students.

SPEAKER_02

Even teachers that are not civics and history teachers. You know, the election isn't just going to come up in history class this year, or not to be the election, just politics in general, but we are an election year. And so even for teachers that are not necessarily addressing those issues in their curriculum, how can they be prepared? I think you've sort of addressed that with this reflection and thinking through your own blind spots, your own gaps in knowledge, and recognizing that students are going to have ideas and understanding that we might not have, and being ready to address that and take that on and not be defensive when a student brings up something that maybe we're uh either disagree with or didn't know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I think it also can help us that kind of self-reflection. And as we think about civics too, I think one kind of reflection that I've done before with teachers is to sort of think about, you know, what are the kinds of knowledge, skills, and dispositions that you feel you have and that you've gained over, you know, your time growing up to participate in your community or your society. What is it, you know, what are the kinds of experiences that you've had that have helped you? And what are the kinds of things you would hope for your students? And how does that connect across grade levels and content areas? Yes, I think it's really helpful to have a civics course, but I also think that many of the ways in which we think about, you know, I think there are some districts who've really thought about what does it mean to prepare students who are college, career, and civic ready or even community ready. So I think it's really helpful to reflect with your colleagues about what are the kinds of skills and capacities that you can see. And many of those skills and capacities, I think, reach far beyond different content areas for us to really all think about ourselves as civic educators.

SPEAKER_02

Getting into some of the specifics now that uh Facing History offers. I know, for example, um, starting, I think actually just a couple of days after this interview, uh, I'll try to get this episode out as quickly as possible. You have a series beginning, uh, a series called Democracy in Action Teaching About the 2024 election and educating for civic participation. It's a six election learning series. I wonder if you could talk a bit about that. What are some of the highlights of that series and uh I and ultimately what would an educator get out of taking part in it?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's great. Yes, we're very excited to launch this six-part series. It's virtual, so folks can join from anywhere. Um and what we really wanted to do with this series is engage with educators and thinking about the health of our democracy, thinking about teaching, about voting and elections, and the really important role that young people play and the ways in which to build their civic responsibility. So, in this series, we start off by doing a session with colleagues from Circle, which is the Center for Information Research and Learning and Civic Engagement at Tufts University. So they're gonna join us to really help frame the ways in which K-12 schools play such an important role in teaching about voting and civic participation, really from K through 12. And also they're gonna help kind of dispel some common misconceptions, right, about how young people don't vote or are not engaged, and really I think help to see, help us see some data around that youth voting is actually on the rise, and that any kinds of supports, even if it's around student voice or other kinds of broader civic skills and capacities, the role that schools play is incredibly important and does have an impact on longer habits in terms of participation and voting. So that will be, I think, really helpful to kind of help frame that picture of what does it look like. And then we are also going to really look at what does it mean to teach about voting in elections? It's not just having a mock election, right, in your school. What does it mean to really build those participation muscles for students? So we'll look at a broad range of things. And I think it's important for teachers to really think about what are some things we're already doing and how might we build off of that to just add one or two more things that feels doable and that works in my context. Um, we have a session on structuring democratic dialogue. So I think that will really touch on again some of what we were talking about. How do we really build a democratic classroom? How do we foster civil discourse? What can that look like in my classroom from day one that would help not only with the election, but I would say year-round, right? To really help support students to engage in dialogue with each other. We have a fabulous session with Dr. Carol Anderson. She's going to share about kind of the history of voting rights and political access. What do we know about laws in some states that have disproportionately restricted the ability of poor minority voters to participate in the democratic process? And then we're going to do some kind of connections around like how could history teachers teach about voting rights and also connect that to the election today. We have two great sessions with KQED, which is the public broadcasting station in Northern California. They're going to do a piece with us. We're going to collaborate with them on doing something around teaching current events, navigating the media landscape. We know that media literacy is so incredibly important to civic education, but also navigating an election season. And then we'll kind of wrap up this series with thinking about youth voice as civic action and how do you teach before and after the votes or tallies? So kind of thinking about how do we help students process not only the election results, whatever they are, but also how do we move forward as a democracy after that and as a community.

SPEAKER_02

We want to build participation muscle. Can you unpack that phrase a little bit for me? Because I love that. And I know you have a whole participation toolkit on your on your site. What does the participation muscle mean to you?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I think this is something that is, you know, so helpful to think about as we think about civic education, that it really is important for young people to have opportunities to apply what they've learned in concrete ways. So just like learning to ride a bike or drive a car, we wouldn't just read about it, right? We we have to actually get behind the wheel and practice it with support, with scaffolding, right? But I think that's the same as it is with civic participation. We want young people in school to have opportunities to participate. And that might look like, you know, identifying an issue that they care about, researching that, and then maybe sharing what they've learned with an audience that is relevant, right, to that issue, raising awareness about the issue, encouraging other people to sort of understand the impact of that issue. Learning how to do that while they're in school, they have the support of teachers and peers to really think about that. And as we talked about earlier, they also have the exposure to other people who may think differently about that issue, right? Gives them a more in-depth, you know, way to think about it. And again, I think it's important to say that, you know, we don't want teachers or schools to be telling students what to think, but if we have the ability to help them understand how to think, how do you research something, find evidence around it, reliable information, and then build your perspective and share that in a way that has logical, you know, and sound reasoning, right? So I think it's important to strengthen those participation muscles while students are in school. And so that could look like them, you know, raising awareness, communicating their conclusions, identifying civic problems, you know, and developing solutions, collaborating with either outside organization or other peers within the school, and being able to then implement a kind of informed and ethical action project. That could be in their classroom, it could be in their school. And I think there are ways in which that can also be scaffolded over time. I know some schools have really thought about we want students to have a project where they're doing something like that in middle school and then they do it again in high school, right? So that you, you know, you have multiple opportunities to apply that knowledge in different settings and in different ways. So that's what we think about with this participation muscle. And I will say is it you mentioned too that facing history has this really powerful part of our kind of what we call our learning journey, which is called choosing to participate. And I think with that, it's really helping students to understand that, you know, it's important. This actually grew out of Facing History's early work with middle school students where they were learning about, they were diving into these deep historical case studies and they were learning about the Holocaust and the failure of democracy during that time. And this question came up very understandably like, how can we make a positive difference so that this doesn't happen again, right? And we realize it's incredibly important for young people to sort of think about, you know, what are the ways that through large and also small choices that people make, do can they really make a difference, both individuals and groups? What are the ways that by choosing to participate, by making those small and large choices, that we really can make a difference and have an impact? So we think it's important for students to reflect on that and also have opportunities to apply that um and practice those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I really I let I love that sentiment, the small choices um can make a big difference over time, particularly when they become habits. And I a lot of what you're touching on here uh to me sounds like local engagement. I think sometimes we we think about civic politics as national or our media is national politics, or everything about the rate for the presidency and it's all up there. But actually for most of us, our lives are impacted much more by the decisions of local government. And getting students uh to recognize that and participate in that um is I'm I should I'm curious your thoughts on that, how the value of of uh of local action, local government.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I'm so glad you brought that up. And we actually just um did a really fabulous um webinar with Dr. Diana Hess from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. And one of the questions that I asked her during the webinar was, you know, should schools teach about voting at elections even in this time that's really controversial? And, you know, part of her, I'll paraphrase, but part of her answer was yes, you know, schools play such an important role that is part of their, you know, mission is to really, you know, support young people to understand democracy and understand how to participate in it. But she did say something that I thought was really incredibly helpful, which was, you know, oftentimes around an election, we get caught up in polling and politicians, right? The personalities of politicians, especially on the federal level, right? And in an in a national election, when we are electing a president, you know, that can be, that can take the main stage, and we don't see all the other ways in which an election is incredibly important. And so I think especially, you know, in this time if teachers are feeling nervous about, I think, really focusing on, you know, polling and politicians, I think it is not only incredibly helpful and powerful, but it can be, it can resonate more, I think, sometimes for students and communities to really think about state and local issues and ways in which the election will have an impact on that, which I think is often more felt in the day-to-day by students and their families than, you know, oftentimes what's on the federal ballot. And so I think really thinking about, you know, what are the things in my day-to-day life that are impacted by the mayor, by the city council, by the school board, even, I think is a really important lesson to really think about the different levels of our democracy and how that can impact us and the ways in which we can have a voice and participate at all those different levels.

SPEAKER_02

And really having the ability to participate uh in in the local uh government, local environment. You know, I I think at a federal level it becomes a bit fuzzy how to participate beyond sort of uh engaging online, maybe if you're not old enough to vote. Yeah, I I think it's almost disempowering. It seems far away, but at a local level to say these are the things that affect our everyday life, and we can have a direct role in that. Um earlier in the in our talk, you brought up uh one of the obstacles to civic education right now is that maybe some teachers are feeling like I don't want to go there. Um maybe they're getting messages from their administration or from parents, but then you also later brought up the importance of uh engaging with controversial topics as a way of accessing topics like voting rights.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Why are uh hard topics like voting rights so important? And how can we help students uh teachers feel more comfortable engaging with these hard topics as a way of bringing civics home to these students?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, such a great question. And I do think that you know we really do see current events and sort of learning and understanding controversial issues in our world world today as a really essential part of educating young people to be informed and ethical participants. This is one of the kind of best practices in civic education, it always has been, right, to really help young people understand the issues that animate our world today. And I think when students enter into the school doors, they don't leave their, you know, knowledge of those kinds of things happening around them in the world at the door, right? So they're bringing that, you know, what they're being exposed to either online or in their communities or they're hearing it in conversation. So I think as we talked about earlier, I think one of the advantages of um discussing and understanding and studying those kinds of broader sort of policy themes or issues in our society in school is one that the focus is on learning. It's around understanding those issues, understanding the history, the root causes of them, really understanding how do we investigate reliable information and evidence around that issue, and how do people think differently about that? What are multiple perspectives around this issue? So, again, the purpose is not about here's what you should think about it, but here's how to investigate that issue and understand it better. And I think that is really, those are really important building blocks for participating in society as an informed civic actor and one that's really thoughtful. What I would say is that again, I would sort of come back to, you know, for educators that are feeling nervous about that, or, you know, I think that there's a way in which to really think about how do I prepare a kind of learning environment that can navigate these sorts of issues. So again, I think it goes back to starting with yourself and reflecting. I think it's also really important to engage with your administrator to understand or talk to them about, you know, if you're getting ready to do a topic or a discussion, to talk with them, to sort of understand, you know, what make sure they're in the loop, right? But also understand what kind of support they can yield. I think it's also really helpful to communicate to parents, here's what we are doing, or to families and caregivers, to really say, here are the kinds of things that we're studying, here's why, and here's that how that aligns to either state standards or my course goals and objectives for students in terms of what I want them to really learn. And then I think it also is really, as we talked about, incredibly important to build community and trust and to really help students have the kinds of skills, and I think it can even be, even in high school, helping students have sentence starters for how do I ask a question in a way that's going to invite an exchange, right? Not begin the conversation from a really defensive point of view, right? Or how can I how can I say, oh, that's really interesting that your perspective is X? I think Y, right? And and how do I even talk about that? So those are all skills that I think students can learn. Unfortunately, we don't have great models of that in our political landscape. So I think really helping young people see what that can look like, um, hear what that can look like, and build those skills is really important. I would also say at the same time that it's important that we build those contracts and we have those, have norms, classroom norms, where we draw the line and are really clear about not having offensive or dehumanizing or violent language and really being clear about those norms in the classroom and school are unacceptable, right? We are gonna talk about these issues in a way in which we're not silencing people's perspectives, but we are not gonna share language that's going to dehumanize someone else or their identity. So I think building out those norms and that kind of contracting ahead. And then I think thinking about when something, when a maybe when there, you know, is an issue that comes up where you feel like you need to do some repair, I think it's okay to pause and regroup as a community, right? Whether that's in your classroom or as a school, to really think about how do we step back and think about what went wrong, where do we go from here, and how do we repair and re-strengthen or renew our norms or our classroom guidelines when when you feel like that may not have gone successfully in a conversation.

SPEAKER_02

You also brought up media literacy. And I and I think we could end here with a discussion about the importance of I I feel like media literacy has become uh uh somehow both uh I think we recognize the importance of media literacy. Certainly from a decade ago, maybe even five years ago, it's really become uh uh something that uh educators recognize uh vital. We're having a hard time uh figuring out where to put in our curriculum. I think a lot of a lot of different educators, not just social studies of science English are uh really uh recognizing important, but not quite sure how to fit into our stuff curriculum, how to engage students to think about the type of information that they are seeing online and how to discern reliable from less than reliable. What tips would you have for educators out there who are grappling with media literacy?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's such a great question, and I do think we we've made a lot of progress in recognizing how important it is. Um, but I do think it is it is incredibly important to continue to think about how is media literacy a thread throughout students' um education, not only by grade level, but also content areas, because I do think the kind of information that you're accessing, you know, online in a social studies class is different than information that you're accessing, you know, online in a science class. So being able to have those skills and transfer those across those different kinds of subject areas, I think is really important. So I think that thread throughout is really important. And I think it is helpful to really think with colleagues about, and I think this is where if there is the opportunity to advocate for time and space for co-planning, for common planning time, to really think with educators about, okay, at this grade level across our subject areas, where are the ways that we can fit this in? We know that the science teacher is gonna do X, the English language arts teacher could do this, the social studies. So there's ways in which we're thinking in a multidisciplinary way about how to really integrate civic learning and media literacy. But I think the media literacy piece, the other thing I would really recommend for people to think about is that we, I think there's a couple of different ways in which we use media and that we as adults and young people need support in thinking about how to do that. I think you already mentioned and we've talked about already, sort of the consumption of media. So, how do we, you know, understand how to find reliable information, how to judge the credibility of the information that we find. So there's the kind of consumption of media and information. I think the other part of it that I totally understand there's just not enough time. But the other part of it that's important to think about is that young people and adults are producing media all of the time and producing information. So, how do we do that in informed and thoughtful and effective ways? What does it look like also when we're sharing that information? And that could be as much as a tweet as, you know, kind of circulating something that I read without reading it fully, right? So I think we want to think about that kind of spectrum of consuming information, producing, and sharing information and how, because we now have the ability to do that ourselves in this media-rich landscape, um, how do we take advantage of those opportunities to do it in informed and ethical and effective ways, um, but also kind of understand the risks, right, and the challenges that we're facing. So I would encourage that common planning time to sort of think about how do we integrate that in as a thread throughout the phone.

SPEAKER_02

I think one of the dominant themes here in this conversation is preparation, thought. Right. The the effective civics education is not something that you just kind of stumble into. Right. You it requires planning, it requires a little thoughtful structuring of how you're going to take on these issues, whether it's media literacy or uh uh historical uh concept related to uh to voting in elections or even the elections are so many uh great things to think about, Erica. I'm wondering for a teacher who's listening that maybe uh is just kind of beginning to sort of formulate how to to um create this rich civic classroom that you've described, where can they begin? What's a good starting point?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's such a great question. And I would say that it's really important to in that kind of preparation. And self-reflection, I think it's really important to just choose one or two things that you want to do. So I think, first of all, recognize that you're probably already doing some things that are really helpful and relate and connect to preparing students for participating in their community and society. So I think celebrate what you're already doing. This is really hard work and it takes time. And then I would just pick one or two things that you think feel doable and that you might have support from another colleague in your building or in your community or somewhere close, you know, by that you can reach out to. Like what's something that you could try in collaboration with someone else? And then I would just try that one thing or those two things, and then just reflect as you do that, what worked well, what didn't work, what would I want to do differently next time? And I would encourage you to also ask feedback from your students, you know, what do they think worked? What would they recommend? And I think some of the things that you might consider as a starting place are building a democratic classroom. Like what are the ways in which we might start with contracting? What does it look like as I begin the year in August or September or whenever you start? And I would highly recommend thinking about what's the kind of classroom that I want to build. So whenever a conversation comes up or I do want to integrate maybe a current event piece, I have some of that scaffolding and that structure of support of a community of learners in place to support that. And I think that's a really wonderful place to start.

SPEAKER_02

And of course, Facing History has so many resources to get everyone started that are linked in the show notes, particularly that those beginning of the year routines and setting up a democratic classroom, reflecting on your own beliefs. I'll link all of those. Erica, thank you so much for taking the time. This is such an important topic as we start a new school year in the middle of an election. And I want to thank you for uh taking the time to talk us through it.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. Thank you so much for letting me join you. And I'm excited to be in conversation about all this and just wish all the educators out there, you know, support and just know that, you know, what you're doing really is making a difference. And just think about those one or two things that you want to integrate this year.

SPEAKER_01

A huge thanks to Erica for joining me to talk through Facing History's Incredible Program.

SPEAKER_02

I'm a big fan of curriculum, of thinking about curriculum. We have our written curriculum, we have our taught curriculum, we have our assessed curriculum. But then there's also life. And life itself is a curriculum because sometimes life delivers opportunities that we uh don't necessarily plan for. We haven't written it out. We haven't devised ways to assess this unplanned curriculum. The election is that thing. This election it it's not that the election is unplanned. We knew it was coming, but it's taken such an interesting turn recently and it's opened up so many possibilities for rich conversation with our students if we are ready for it. But as we talked about in our conversation, this is about being prepared, it's about being thoughtful, and facing history is there to help you get there. And I totally understand. If you listen to this and you're like, man, this comes up in my classroom, I need to avoid it because I uh someone's gonna complain or I'm gonna say something and get myself in trouble.

SPEAKER_01

And I get that.

SPEAKER_02

But I encourage you to explore the resources at facing history and talk to colleagues, talk to leadership, and think about ways that you can be ready to have those conversations because I guarantee your students will be happy you did. It will provide opportunity for rich conversation, a conversation that quite frankly will help develop them as citizens. And as Erica said, specifics can't be just about what's in the book, it has to be action. And here's a chance for you to give them some of that action, that conversation, that practice, having civil discourse about big important ideas and issues in American society. Thanks so much for checking out what's the big idea in this episode. I wish you all the best of luck as you head back to school. I know many of you are already back in the classroom, and I really appreciate you taking the time to listen to what I think is a really vital topic in classrooms today. And uh, I hope you get a chance to check out facing history if you don't already know their stuff. Um stay safe out there, have a great year, and uh tune in next time.

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Dan Kearney

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