Can Democrats truly reconcile with those Republicans who called President Biden’s election fraudulent and encouraged violent attack of the U.S. Capitol? Earlier moments in U.S. history should caution us about the lure and danger of reconciliation when one side refuses to acknowledge wrongdoing. After the Civil War, former Union partisans sought to get along with the Southerners who fought to keep Black people enslaved even after the war. But later, they doubted the wisdom of having done so.
One of those people was Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852), the most influential novel in the United States during the 19th century. Her famous book kindled readers’ sense that they could and must end slavery, even if that meant disrupting alliances, friendships and family ties with enslavers and their supporters. Thirty years later, Stowe wrote a story little known even it its own time, in which she considered what happened when these same White Northerners who fought against slavery reconciled too easily with former enslavers.
Can Democrats truly reconcile with those Republicans who called President Biden’s election fraudulent and encouraged violent attack of the U.S. Capitol? Earlier moments in U.S. history should caution us about the lure and danger of reconciliation when one side refuses to acknowledge wrongdoing. After the Civil War, former Union partisans sought to get along with the Southerners who fought to keep Black people enslaved even after the war. But later, they doubted the wisdom of having done so.
One of those people was Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852), the most influential novel in the United States during the 19th century. Her famous book kindled readers’ sense that they could and must end slavery, even if that meant disrupting alliances, friendships and family ties with enslavers and their supporters. Thirty years later, Stowe wrote a story little known even it its own time, in which she considered what happened when these same White Northerners who fought against slavery reconciled too easily with former enslavers.
Written in 1882, but set in 1866, “The Captain’s Story” tells of two former Union army captains who visit Florida, where they once fought on the battlefield. They hope to relax and recuperate from the toll the war had taken on their health. The two listen to their white Floridian guide’s ghost story, which includes his casual mention of having murdered enslaved African captives. The ghost of one captive continues to haunt a nearby plantation, he says. Despite moral qualms, the two captains decide to continue their trip with their murderous guide who can show them all the best fishing grounds. They will get along, and leave his punishment to God.
Stowe began spending winters in Florida just after the Civil War, about the time the story is set, initially hoping to help her son recover from his own Civil War trauma. She wrote popular travel articles in the 1870s touting the state’s pleasures for Protestant Northern Whites, hoping to attract them to politically overwhelm the Southern planters. Full of chummy advice on how to travel south and where to buy land, the accounts spurred the state’s first tourist boom while also raising money for a Black school. In “The Captain’s Story,” she swerves to remind her readers of the brutalities of her Florida neighbors who once enslaved people.
Although Stowe was a founder of the Atlantic Monthly, “The Captain’s Story” was not published there, perhaps because few 1880s editors wished to take the horrors of slavery seriously. Albion Tourgée, the editor of the short-lived but high-paying weekly Our Continent, did, however. He was a Union veteran who worked for Reconstruction then wrote about his experiences in two best-selling novels focusing on the difficulties and assaults the freed people faced. He went on to fight Jim Crow, as the lawyer representing a Black plaintiff attacking segregation in public facilities in Plessy v. Ferguson.
Although Our Continent was not a crusading publication and sought to attract White Southern readers, too, Tourgée published other works that acknowledged that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Yet Our Continent was obscure enough that “The Captain’s Story” received no notice in the press at the time. It was not anthologized or reprinted.
The story’s questioning of White complicity in postwar racism is subtle and conflicted. But it does stand in stark contrast to other popular magazine stories of the time. Northern magazines shoveled out stories romanticizing Southern plantations as places where sweet, quasi-familial ties between enslavers and enslaved people infused life with graciousness. Plantation fiction frequently featured a tired Northern businessman who, like the two captains, goes South to rest and comes to appreciate relaxed Southern hospitality.
Marriage to a Southern woman in these stories offered an allegory of reconciliation between Northern and Southern Whites. As the White abolitionist and orator Anna E. Dickinson noted, “The fashion of the day has been, and is, to talk of the love feast that is spread between old foes, till at last we of the North and of the South are doing what our forefathers did 30 years ago — grasping hands across the prostrate body of the negro.”
Of course, former Confederates did not seek reconciliation. Instead, they created the cult of the Lost Cause, celebrating the nobility and heroism of the Confederacy, leading to the erection of statues honoring Confederate leaders and school textbooks that continued to inculcate this version of history for over a century.
That is why Stowe’s story is significant. It called out the murderous past, presented plantation owners and their friends as lawless, brutal, disloyal, casual killers, scornful of the family ties of enslaved people.But the story disappeared, and that illuminated the shifting reality of race relations in 1882. Reconstruction had ended, a reign of racial terror lynchings had commenced, and states passed Black Codes that allowed Southern Whites to continue to coerce the labor of African Americans.White supremacy had regrouped with new legal structures and Northern collusion, and former Confederates were back in power in the South. Ex-Confederates suppressed the Black vote and reinstated slavery under different names.
The myth of benevolent plantation life took hold through sheer repetition in fictional work, most familiar now through “Gone With the Wind,” imagery and plantation tours. Burying Stowe’s story while celebrating that myth matters. It is another small part of concealing slavery’s past and obscuring the power of white supremacy, which still haunt the United States.
I want to share the most transformational experience I’ve had during my teaching career. It started in 2017 at the end of the school day when my students were given a letter to take home to their parents. This notice detailed how our school building tested positive for lead in its drinking water. Some of the fountains were so highly elevated that they tested over one thousand parts per billion (ppb) when the action limit set by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) is 15 ppb. This “backpack letter” meant for school administrators and parents’ eyes, sent my students and I down a path of several years of service based learning and student led activism which transformed my role as a classroom teacher. We not only fought for student appropriated funding to install two new water fountains with filtration systems in our school, but we also analyzed our water quality at home with free New York State testing kits. From there, since one didn’t exist, we expanded our work by creating an interactive map of all the schools in NYC illustrating their water quality and used the information to lobby our elected officials to improve access to clean, lead free drinking water. You can learn more and see examples of my students’ activism including videos and speeches students developed to express their concerns about water quality with the President as part of inauguration events at my teaching website www.cagebustingclassrooms.com.
Perhaps this is the type of global education you want students to be engaged in as well but don’t know where to start? I am happy to share that my students’ activism and others like them across the country have been developed into an online curriculum to help other educators interested in this work. The U.S. Department of State has launched Solving Global Problems, a free, self-paced online course, funded by the U.S government and developed by IREX, to help educators prepare to ignite students’ critical thinking and creativity through a focus on tackling global problems.
During the course, participants hear from elementary, middle and high school teachers about how they successfully engaged students to apply knowledge and skills to complex problems and how it empowers students to make a difference in the world. Global competence equips students with the skills, knowledge, and attitudes to be successful in today’s interconnected world. Through the course educators will be equipped with an understanding of what problem-driven learning is and how to apply it in their classrooms, whether that is in person or virtually. Educators will explore how global problems can be introduced across content areas and grade levels.
One of the most challenging parts can be getting started. This course will provide practical ideas for connecting problem-driven learning to standards and resources to apply in your practice and is designed for busy professionals who are motivated to engage their students with real challenges. Educators who successfully complete the course will receive a U.S. Department of State Global Problem-Solving Educator badge and certificate noting 4.5 hours of independent professional learning and a great step towards becoming a Fulbright Teacher for Global Classrooms.
Almost four years later, during remote learning, my students and I have been parsing President Biden’s infrastructure bill and discussing his ambitious pledge to replace 100% of the water pipes and service lines across America. The New York State Constitution guarantees every student in the state the right to education defined in terms of preparation for civic participation yet far too many schools, particularly schools especially those that serve black and brown students, are ill equipped to provide this type of education. Let’s make sure all our students are @DemocracyReady by equipping teachers with the agency and experiences necessary to help young people recognize their civic roles and exercise their civic powers to work for meaningful social change.
Teaching the 1898 Wilmington Race Massacre using the History Lab Model
Cara Ward and Lisa Brown Buchanan
Instances of racial violence towards Black Americans have a longstanding history in the United States. Though a few events and names are recalled most often in textbooks (e.g., Freedom Rides, Nat Turner) their retellings are generally presented from a White viewpoint; in fact, some events have been completely omitted from formal curriculum. This article discusses the teaching of racial violence in the United States, explores how Black historical principles of power and oppression can frame the study of events of racial violence, and outlines a concrete history lab designed to study the 1898 Wilmington Race Massacre (also commonly called the Wilmington Coup or Wilmington Insurrection).
An Overview of the Teaching of Racial Violence
Scholars of teaching Black history have documented the teaching and omission of racial violence towards Black and African Americans for decades (see, for example, Brown, Brown, & Ward, 2017; Busey & Walker 2017; Love, 2019; Vasquez Heilig, Brown, & Brown, 2012). Most research on teaching Black history has focused on PK-12 teaching and knowledge (Woodson, 2017), with some analysis of preservice teachers’ knowledge of Black history (King, 2019). More recently, resources for classroom teachers have become available that are focused on centering the Black experience and perspectives, particularly in experiences of racial violence (see, for example, Learning for Justice’s Teaching Hard History podcast series, New York Times’ 1619 Project, Facing History and Ourselves’ Race in US History collection) and some scholars have described pedagogical approaches to teaching Black history with accuracy and intention in K-12 (Simmons, 2016; Vickery, & Rodríguez, 2021; Vickery & Salinas, 2019).
Some have argued Black history is American history, suggesting a shared legacy between Black and White Americans (King, 2021) which is generally untrue. Others have taken this sentiment to task, pointing out that while the teaching of Black history altogether has been sidelined or disregarded, at best, the teaching of racial violence has been overwhelmingly avoided or if taught at all, with tremendous gaps and inaccuracies (Brown & Brown, 2010a, 2010b, 2011; Woodson, 2017).
In order to improve Black history education historical and contemporary racial violence must be taught as part of American history and Black history (King, 2021). As Brown, Brown, and Ward (2017) explain, classroom investigations of racial violence taught within the context of students’ lives presents a curriculum that “acknowledges race and racism in their present lives.” Using a framework of Black historical consciousness is one way to study racial violence within the context of Black history.
Teaching the Wilmington Race Massacre through Principles of Black Historical Consciousness
Scholars have described the need for teaching a more complete story of Black history (e.g., King, 2021; Muhammad, 2020; Rodríguez & Vickery, 2020) and using a Black historical consciousness framework centers the Black experience and perspective, both largely missing from traditional retellings of Black history. King describes six principles of Black historical consciousness (see King, 2021). While all are in some way directly related to racial violence, in this article, we focus on the principle of power and oppression (King, 2021). King (2021) suggests racial violence as a potential topic for the principle of power and oppression, and similar to our use of the history lab below to examine racial violence, suggests the use of compelling questions that align with interrogating systemic racism. Recognizing that “it is important to understand that Black people have been victims or victimized by oppressive structures, but have never been solely victims (King, 2021, p. 338)” teaching the Wilmington, NC Race Massacre of 1898 through the lens of power and oppression provides a historical context and conscious that is missing in traditional teaching of Black history and illustrates how power and oppression are created and sustained through society (King, 2021, p. 338). Complex ideas like power and oppression are often difficult knowledge for learners, and in concrete examples like the Wilmington Race Massacre, content may be taboo, rendering it obsolete in curricula and standards. Often coined as “hard history”, such content can be taught in powerful and productive ways. We posit that the history lab model, focused on evidence-based answers, offers the structure to unpack complex ideas of power and oppression while identifying the lasting impact of racial violence through the use of historical sources.
History Labs as an Instructional Strategy for Teaching Difficult Knowledge
Teachers are often wary of including instances of “hard history” as these events can be unsettling and spark tense discussions, especially in the current era of political polarization (McAvoy, 2016). In addition to building a cooperative and supportive classroom community before covering such events, there are instructional methods that can lead to productive classroom discussions and a deeper understanding of complex history. One such method is a history lab; first described by Bruce Lesh (2011), this form of instruction includes three main components: a compelling question, sources to examine, and an evidence-based answer. This teaching method is inquiry-based and includes components of Swan, Lee, and Grant’s (2015) Inquiry Design Model which is now widely used in the field of social studies.
To create a history lab, teachers develop an overarching, open-ended question called a compelling question for students to consider. Swan, Lee, and Grant (2018, 2019) have devoted a chapter in each of their books on the Inquiry Design Model to the topic of compelling questions and how to develop them. After question development, teachers select related sources for students to examine, often a mix of primary sources for details and secondary sources for background information and clarification. After presenting the question and sources to students, teachers facilitate the examination of the documents, reminding students to cite evidence from the documents while formulating their answer to the compelling question (Lesh, 2011).
Careful facilitation of discussion is the key to the effectiveness of this teaching method since it is critical for students to cite evidence in their answers. The most effective history labs are structured in ways that allow student interaction and opportunities to share thoughts throughout instead of just working through a “packet” and writing an individual response. An important first step is determining how to have students examine the primary and secondary sources that are presented. This can be done via gallery walks, jigsaw grouping, small group analysis, and whole group seminar style examination (Author, 2017; Author, 2018; Authors, 2020). Creating guiding questions, prompts, or a graphic organizer to help guide students through a lab can also be beneficial.
Another important consideration in the pandemic-induced era of increased online learning is whether a lab will take place synchronously or asynchronously. While the traditional face-to-face classroom setting is ideal, labs can also work well in either the fully virtual or hybrid classroom. Online synchronous methods such as breakout rooms can be used as a method for having small groups examine sources together. Another effective synchronous method is a whole class seminar-style discussion where students can speak one at a time or even use the chat to respond. For asynchronous course delivery, teachers can put the question and sources in a Google Doc or Jamboard and ask students to share thoughts by adding comments. Another option is to use the discussion board feature in a learning management system such as Google Classroom or Canvas for students to respond to individual sources. Teachers can also use video response and sharing tools such as Flipgrid for students to record their evidence-based answer to a compelling question. For hybrid models, teachers can ask students to examine sources ahead of time, using some of the online tools mentioned above, and then use face-to-face time in class for a whole group discussion.
The 1898 Wilmington Massacre
One example of hard history that can be effectively examined through the use of a history lab is the 1898 Wilmington Massacre. November 10, 1898 was a day of horrific racial violence inflicted upon the thriving, successful Black community in the coastal town of Wilmington, North Carolina. An election year, 1898 had been filled with White supremacist propaganda in local and state newspapers which ultimately led to intimidation of Black voters and a rigged election in Wilmington on November 8th. Two days later, a White mob armed themselves, burned the office of the local Black newspaper The Daily Record to the ground, and took over the city’s biracial government by violent force. During the chaos, the mob killed approximately 60 Black citizens (likely more as an official death toll was impossible to determine) and forced untold numbers out of town. The mayor and members of the board of aldermen were replaced by White supremacists. The event holds great historic significance not only on a local and state level, but also on a national scale. It is the only successful coup d’état in the history of the United States (McCluskey, 2018; Everett, 2015; Tyson, 2006; Umfleet, 2009) and is an example of the extreme violence and resulting large-scale loss of life that could occur as a result of the rise of angry White supremacists in the Jim Crow era. The 1898 Massacre has been compared to what happened in Tulsa in 1921 (Everett, 2015; Umfleet, 2015) and has been referenced multiple times in coverage of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol (Butler-Arnold, 2021; Cornish, 2021; Hayes, 2021; Ingram, 2021; Meyers, 2021).
The significance of this event is ever-increasing and the economic, social, and political impact is still apparent in Wilmington, NC today. As with other events of racial violence, this event has been largely overlooked and rarely taught, even in North Carolina, due to a lack of information about the event (Everett, 2015). Even the terminology used to describe the event is still evolving – originally called a race riot, in recent years, it has been referred to as an insurrection, massacre, and coup d’état (Fonvielle, 2018; Tyson, 2006; Zucchino, 2020). For all of these reasons, the Wilmington Race Massacre should be taught with middle and secondary students and we believe a history lab is the most appropriate method for studying the event.
A History Lab about the 1898 Wilmington Massacre
We offer the following example of a history lab about 1898 that we developed for students to demonstrate how the work described above can be done. The lab described below can be found at https://tinyurl.com/1898historylab and is formatted as a view-only Google Slides presentation. This format allows teachers who would like to use the lab either a ready-made version that can be used right away or the flexibility to make a copy of the document to edit for their specific instructional needs. The original sources are linked in the speaker notes area for each slide.
While there are many questions that could be asked about this event, we feel that asking students to examine the long-term impact of the 1898 is most critical to their comprehension of the scale and significance of this event. Therefore, our compelling question is “What is the lasting impact of the 1898 Wilmington Massacre?”
In order to introduce the lab, we have included two sources, one primary and one secondary to give students some background information before they begin analyzing sources. The first source (slide 2) is a photograph of the mob in front of the burnt remains of The Daily Record newspaper office. The next source (slide 3) is a 12-minute video published by Vox which gives a brief, but informative summary of the event. These two sources give students some sense of what happened so that they have some frame of reference for the additional sources.
We selected three guiding questions to help direct student thinking and analysis throughout the lab. For each of these questions, we selected three sources for students to examine. In terms of format for this lab, we recommend dividing the class into three groups (1, 2, 3) and having each group thoroughly examine one of the questions and the accompanying sources, thus allowing a group of students to become “experts” on their assigned question. After this analysis, the class should “jigsaw” into three new groups (A, B, C) which each include members from groups 1, 2, and 3. In groups A, B, and C, the representatives for each question should take turns sharing their analysis of their assigned question with the group so all can gain a sense of what happened and begin to consider what the lasting impact is.
What were the events that led to the 1898 Wilmington Massacre?
For this question, we selected a photograph of the waterfront in downtown Wilmington in the late 1800s which shows the prominent display of White supremacy banners (slide 7). We also selected an excerpt from a speech by Rebecca Lattimore Felton during which she endorsed lynching as a punishment for Black men who had relationships with White women (slide 8). The third source we selected for this question was an editorial written by Alexander Manly in response to Felton’s speech where he points out the unjust and hypocritical nature of her stance (slide 9). These sources should give students a glimpse of the extent to which White supremacy impacted daily life and conversations. While all of the sources in the lab are about a violent event, it should also be noted that Felton’s full speech and Manly’s full editorial which are linked include references to rape. We recommend that teachers thoroughly examine all the sources themselves before presenting them to students.
What happened during the event?
The first source for this question is a telegram sent to then President of the United States, William McKinley warning him of the volatile situation in Wilmington (slide 11). The next source is a map marking the location of those wounded and killed during the event (slide 12). The final source for this question is an interactive timeline and map which gives a comprehensive overview of the events (slide 13). These sources outline the seriousness of the situation and how violent it became.
What was the economic and social impact of the 1898 Wilmington Massacre?
We selected three charts from Umfleet’s (2009) book A Day of Blood for students to examine. The first chart compares the 1897 and 1900 occupations by race for Wilmington citizens (slide 15). The second chart shows the census population by race from 1860 to 1910 for Wilmington (slide 16) and the third chart shows the same data for North Carolina (slide 17). These charts show the loss of economic opportunities for Black Wilmingtonians as well as the decline in the city’s Black population.
We recommend concluding this lab with a whole class discussion focusing back on the compelling question: “What is the lasting impact of the 1898 Wilmington Massacre?” and the evidence that students examined in their groups. Students will likely reference the rise of White supremacy, the loss of human life and the impact on population, economic repercussions such as decreased employment for Black citizens, voter intimidation, and lack of Black political leaders in Wilmington in years that followed the event. Since this is an open-ended question, other responses may be offered as well, but students should back up their ideas with evidence from the sources.
Additional Teacher Resources
We understand that most teachers are unfamiliar with the 1898 Wilmington massacre and may need additional resources to improve their content knowledge of this series of events. We suggest the resources in Table 1 for a more in-depth history of the Wilmington Race Massacre. Teachers may find these sources useful as they study 1898 alongside their students.
Table 1: Additional Teacher Resources for 1898 Wilmington Race Massacre
Umfleet, L.S. (2009). A day of blood. Raleigh: North Carolina Office of Archives and History.
Zucchino, D. (2020). Wilmington’s lie. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
Everett, C. (2015). Wilmington on fire [Documentary film]. United States: Speller Street Films.
Oliver, N. (2016). The red cape [Motion picture]. United States.
While this lab focuses on the Wilmington Race Massacre, we would be remiss to not recognize the abhorrent number of massacre events in United States history to date similar to 1898. If we are committed to teaching the story of Black America (King, 2021), we must be willing to navigate a more complete story of race and racism in the United States, which we believe includes studying “hard history”. Bringing together a Black historical consciousness framework and history lab structure is one powerful and productive approach to a more complete story of Black history.
References
Brown, A.L., Brown, K.D, & Ward, A. (2017). Critical race theory meets culturally relevant pedagogy: Advancing a critical sociohistorical consciousness for teaching and curriculum. Social Education, 81(1), 23-27.
Brown, K.D. & Brown, A.L. (2011). Teaching K-8 students about race: African Americans, racism, & the struggle for social justice in the U.S. Multicultural Education,19(1), 9-13.
Brown, A. L., & Brown, K. D. (2010a). Strange fruit indeed: Interrogating contemporary textbook representations of racial violence toward African Americans. Teachers College Record, 112(1), 31-67.
Brown, K. D., & Brown, A. L. (2010b). Silenced memories: An examination of the sociocultural knowledge on race and racial violence in official school curriculum. Equity & Excellence in Education, 43(2), 139-154.
Busey, C. L., & Walker, I. (2017). A dream and a bus: Black critical patriotism in elementary social studies standards. Theory & Research in Social Education, 45(4), 456-488.
Butler-Arnold, A. (2021). Why my students weren’t surprised on January 6th. Social Education, 85(1), 8-10.
Cornish, A. (2021, January 8). Race and the Capitol riot: An American story we’ve heard before [Radio Broadcast]. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/transcripts/953286955
Everett, C. (2015). Wilmington on fire [Documentary film]. United States: Speller Street Films.
Fonvielle, C. (2018, January 24). Email correspondence.
King, L. (2019). Interpreting Black History: Toward a Black History Framework for Teacher Education. Urban Education, 54(3), 368-396.
King, L. (2021). Black history is not American history: Toward a framework of Black historical consciousness. Social Education, 84(6), 335-341.
Lesh, B. A. (2011). “Why won’t you just tell us the answer?”: Teaching historical thinking in grades 7-12. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.
Love, B. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press.
McAvoy, P. (2016). Preparing young adults for polarized America. In Journell, W. (Ed.)
Teaching social studies in an era of divisiveness: The challenges of discussing social issues in a non-partisan way. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Press, 31-46.
Meyers, S.. (2021, January 7). Seth Meyers calls for Trump’s removal after violent insurrection at Capitol. [Video]. Youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOIFBKB4mIE
Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating genius: An equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy. Scholastic.
Rodríguez, N.N. and Vickery, A.E. (2020). More than a hamburger: Disrupting problematic picturebook depictions of the Civil Rights Movement. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 21(2), 109-128.
Swan, K., Grant, S. G., & Lee, J. (2019). Blueprinting: An inquiry-based curriculum. National Council for the Social Studies and C3 Teachers.
Swan, K., Lee, J., & Grant, S. G. (2015). The New York state toolkit and the inquiry design model: Anatomy of an inquiry. Social Education, 79(5), 316-322.
Swan, K., Lee, J., & Grant, S. G. (2018). Inquiry design model: Building inquiries in social studies. National Council for the Social Studies and C3 Teachers.
Umfleet, L.S. (2009). A day of blood. Raleigh: North Carolina Office of Archives and History.
Vasquez Heilig, J., Brown, K.D., & Brown, A.L. (2012). The illusion of inclusion: A Critical Race Theory textual analysis of race and standards. Harvard Educational Review,82(3), 403-424.
Vickery, A.E. & Rodríguez, N. N. (2021). “A woman question and a race problem”: Attending to intersectionality in children’s literature. The Social Studies, 112(2), 57-62.
Vickery, A.E. and Salinas, C. (2019). “I Question America…. Is this America”: Centering the narratives of Black women in the Civil Rights Movement. Curriculum Inquiry, 49(3), 260-283.
Woodson, A. N. (2017). There ain’t no White people here”: Master narratives of the Civil Rights Movement in the stories of urban youth. Urban Education, 52(3), 316-342.
Zucchino, D. (2020). Wilmington’s lie. Atlantic Monthly Press.
In The Winds of Change (2007), Eugene Linden suggests that before catastrophic climate changes, the climate in areas experience not prolonged climate change that gradually increases but a flickering of drastic changes. When reading this analysis, I am met with my experiences living in the United Kingdom (UK) as a graduate student. These flickering events I experienced in a year unveiled the effects long-term climate change could have on this region, as the UK infrastructure could not cope with the drastic changes.
These flickering events are “the beast from the east” and the summer heat wave. The beast from the east was a snowstorm in 2018 that resulted from easterly winds from the near continent. According to the met office, “When pressure is high over Scandinavia, the UK tends to experience a polar continental air mass. When this happens in winter, cold air is drawn in from the Eurasian landmass, bringing the cold and wintry conditions that give rise to the ‘Beast from the East’ moniker.” In most parts of Edinburgh, Scotland, the snow was no more than three inches deep, while other parts of Scotland experienced ten-foot to twenty-foot drifts. This caused a massive shutdown of the country. All trains, buses, and schools were canceled across the UK. When speaking to the locals, they said they had not seen a snowstorm to this scale in Scotland before. According to the Washington Post, this has not occurred since March 1979. Edinburgh’s infrastructure could not support three to eight inches of snow, causing tourism and travel to shut down for a week. This flickering during winter continues in 2021, with another beast from the east set to occur this month, plummeting temperatures in the highlands to -12 degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit). At the same time, England goes on red alert to brace the storm. Although these storms show, the impact one can have on travel and tourism. One thing I witnessed first-hand was the food shortage at grocery stores before the storm came. Although this is usual human behavior, “get the milk and bread before the snowstorm,” the grocery stores within the city took two weeks to bounce back. Tesco (a major chain grocery store in the UK) had to shut down for a few days because workers could not get into the store. In addition, there was not much food to sell since trucks that would replenish the shelves were not traveling. It took two whole weeks since the storm hit to stock grocery shelves back to the normal amount. This was only one storm that lasted for 2.5 days, should this flickering stop and cold spells continue, it shows a potential problem for food shortages in major cities.
The flickering episodes and climate change in the summer also continue to be an issue in the United Kingdom. In 2018, the UK experienced a heat wave in which temperatures across the UK rose to 15.8 C (60.4 F), which is 1.5 above average. In mid-august of 2020, the UK continued to experience 30C heat waves longer than a heat wave of 1976, along with higher temperatures than experienced in 2003. These heat waves continue each summer now, indicating that they are more the norm than the exception. These heat waves influence the population and the land where the infrastructure was built for a cool, wet climate. There are no air conditioners in UK buildings, and although an average annual temperature of 60 degrees may not seem warm to a New Yorker, the effect on society showed the issue. During the heat wave, trains shut down within Scotland as many people passed out on the trains due to the heat. The rail services across the UK were at risk of derailment as the tracks had a risk of buckling in the heat. Besides, electric lines could overheat in the temperatures causing them to drop and risk the incoming trains. In a further effect on travel, roads also began to melt due to the heat. This caused an issue within small towns as people attempted to navigate around them. During this period, the heat affected the land so drastically that it revealed lines of scores of archaeological sites across Ireland and the UK, dating back to Neolithic era monuments. Although this is a win for archaeologists, it shows the effects of drought and gorse fires on fertile land.
I focus on the United Kingdom, as I saw the effects on society first-hand while a student, but I also believe it highlights a huge impact a 1.50 C temperature increase can have on society. An average annual temperature of 60.50 F degrees may seem manageable to New York, countries that have not been built to endure drastic changes in temperature for short periods are significantly affected.
The results are in and it’s official: we are a nation of watchers. As Americans retreated to the security of their own homes amid the ravages of COVID-19, their love affair with screens only increased. According to the website Eyesafe and the Nielsen television ratings company, adults spent an average of thirteen hours, twenty-eight minutes per day watching a screen in March 2020. That represents a daily increase of three hours, twenty minutes, relative to the third quarter of the previous year. Of those, live television viewing went up by over two hours each day for five-and-a-half hours total, while time-shifted watching increased by nearly twenty minutes. Streaming video-on-demand viewings likewise spiked eighty-five percent over comparable three-week periods in 2019 and 2020. What seems clear is that what we know about the world around us is increasingly dependent on electronic boxes of various sizes and dimensions, and on the content providers who fill them.
As a historian, I’m always intrigued by how the public learns about the past, which is why my colleagues and I recently ran a national poll to find out where people get their historical information. The results of that survey, a collaboration between the American Historical Association and Fairleigh Dickinson University, and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, indicate that historical consumption is a microcosm of the trends outlined above. Yet those same results, which will be published in full this summer, expose some fascinating incongruities as well.
First, the trends. Asked where they’ve gotten their information about the past since January 2019 (that is, pre-COVID to present), respondents showed an overwhelming preference for screens. Out of a range of nineteen possible sources, the top three choices – documentary film and TV, fictional film and TV, and TV news – were all video. More traditional forms of historical information simply weren’t competitive: museum visits (tenth place), non-fiction history texts (twelfth) and college courses (dead last) trailed television and film by significant margins. That said, the great bugaboo of recent disinformation, social media, likewise assumed back-of-the-pack status, coming in at fourteenth place. Although use of social media has remained robust during the pandemic, most respondents to our survey didn’t seem to view such platforms as having much to do with history, per se.
The incongruities emerged when we asked survey-takers to rank the perceived trustworthiness of those same sources above. Only documentary film and TV stayed in the top three, though it now trailed both museums and historic sites. While TV news ranked third as a go-to source for history, it fared miserably in terms of reliability, coming in fifteenth. Fictional films and TV did even worse at seventeenth. Few respondents had taken a college history course since January 2019, but history professors were still highly trusted, garnering fourth position. The same was true for non-fiction books, which moved up the scale to sixth, despite being sparsely utilized. A bit of a disjuncture thus emerges. Whereas the public reports largely turning to video for its historical information, those same viewers are skeptical of much of what they see on their screens.
Our survey couldn’t determine exactly what people were watching, a topic that awaits further investigation. But respondents’ high utilization of, and obvious trust placed in, documentaries – and their corresponding distrust in news and dramatizations – begs a certain amount of cynicism. Although one can find quality programming in the current state of “docu-mania,” there’s a proliferation of disinformation as well. Such nonsense as Mikki Willis’s Plandemic, or the all-day conspiratorial marathons on the History Channel (Ancient Aliens, anyone?), are wrapped in a patina of documentary that lends them unmerited credibility.
Meanwhile, news programs that may strive for factuality, and that are avidly consumed by history-minded viewers, were largely dismissed by our respondents as unreliable. Here, our survey reflects broader distrust in news services that have been assaulted by several years’ worth of “fake news” accusations. In a national survey from the 1990s similar to ours, people likewise looked askance at dramatized history on film and TV, but they have consistently devoured it nonetheless, if Academy and Emmy Awards are any indication. And just as documentaries can deceive, fictionalized video renditions of the past can be quite edifying if one bears in mind how to read historical films as cultural artifacts.
The increasingly simple ease of access to video media may explain a lot about current consumption habits of historical information. But if so, it bodes ominously for sources of the past deemed more trustworthy, yet which take more effort (reading books) or intentionality (visiting museums) to engage. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by such disjuncture. After all, the nation’s alcohol consumption has surged during the pandemic despite the drug’s well-known detrimental health effects. People knowingly acting against their own self-interests in where they turn to for historical information is thus not an isolated phenomenon.
If there’s a glimmer of hope, it’s that Americans – no matter their age, race, gender or political affiliation – are often in agreement when it comes to their history consumption habits and views on the reliability of sources. Sixty-seven percent of our respondents in the 18-29 age bracket reported watching dramatic films and TV to learn about the past, a statistic that barely moved for the 65+ age cohort (66%). Meanwhile, 87% of those identifying as Democrats said they trusted documentaries somewhat or a great deal, compared with 84% of Republicans.
They may be watching very different historical programming, but the public’s preferences and attitudes toward it align more often than not. In a country as deeply divided as ours, that’s no small matter.
Global Citizenship Education and Liberal Democracy
Evan Saperstein and Daniel Saperstein
In recent decades, a growing number of organizations, scholars, educators, and practitioners have advanced the idea of “global citizenship” (Carter, 2001; Diaz et al., 1999; Noddings, 2005; Oxfam, 2015; Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013; UNICEF, 2013; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2015). The premise behind this concept is simple—there are, or at least should be, a set of universally recognized values and priorities that bind peoples and nations in common cause (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2015). It is through such unity of purpose that countries (and their citizens) can come together to solve problems which transcend the nation-state and require a sustained, international response (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2014). This includes addressing poverty, education, climate change, equality, peace, and several other pressing prerogatives recently articulated by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly (2015) in its 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs).
The UN, and a number of other governmental and nongovernmental institutions, have taken steps to address these SDGs and promote the goals of global-minded citizens (detailed further below). As the notion of global citizenship has gained interest and acceptance in institutional and scholarly circles alike, it has spurred a nascent discipline aptly known as global citizenship education (Brigham, 2011; Fernekes, 2016). Through this emergent area of study, a small, but growing, number of countries have sought to develop and incorporate global citizenship education into school curricula (Bickmore, 2014; Brown et al., 2009; Chong, 2015; Davies et al., 2005; Evans et al., 2009; Motani, 2007; Myers, 2020).
How the term global citizenship is defined will affect how global citizenship-related course content develops. Several leading organizations (including UNESCO, UNICEF, and Oxfam), as well as a number of scholars, have defined and (through such definitions) helped to set the priorities of global citizenship (Carter, 2001; Diaz et al., 1999; Noddings, 2005; Oxfam, 2015; Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013; UNICEF, 2013; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2015). While these definitions have varied, they generally highlight commitment to diversity, the environment, conflict resolution, social justice, and the responsibility to act. These are indeed critical global issues that require ongoing focus and action. At the same time, there is a notable omission from too many definitions of global citizenship—the commitment to liberal democratic values. Indeed, too often, there has been too little focus on key freedoms and rights that undergird liberal democratic society—from due process, to equality, to the freedom of speech, religion, and the press.
This is at a time when democracy is under acute strain around the world (Repucci & Slipowitz, 2021). Earlier this year, the world saw the shocking revolt against the citadel of American democracy, the U.S. Capitol, by thousands of insurrectionists seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election (Mascaro et al., 2021). Additionally, there have been several challenges to democracies across Asia (e.g., Hong Kong, Myanmar, Taiwan, Thailand) this past year, resulting in a wave of pro-democracy protests and the formation of an online solidarity movement (Milk Tea Alliance) (Frayer & Suliman, 2021). Over the last few years, the world also has witnessed democracy in retreat in growing parts of Europe, ranging from Austria to Hungary to Poland (Repucci, 2020). At the same time, authoritarian states have actively sought to undermine democracy around the world by intervening in elections and spreading disinformation (Repucci, 2020).
Recent studies and surveys are further evidence of these troubling anti-democratic trends. In the most recent report from The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (2021) Democracy Index, only 23 of 167 countries were deemed “full democracies.” In fact, a Freedom House report issued this year indicated that political rights and civil liberties have been on the decline for the past decade and a half (Repucci & Slipowitz, 2021). Other studies have shown democracy losing favor with popular opinion. A 2016 study published in the Journal of Democracy found that the next generation of leaders (millennials) have less faith in democracy and are more open to non-democratic ideas (Foa & Mounk, 2016). In a 2019 Pew Research Center survey of 27 countries, a majority of the individuals surveyed were dissatisfied with the workings of their democracy (Wike et al., 2019). And, in a Democracy Perception Index (DPI) study conducted by the Alliance of Democracies (2021) and Latana, thousands of survey respondents across 53 nations considered economic inequality and Big Tech companies (e.g., Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft) as grave threats to democracy.
These trends have not been lost on leading international figures. In former U.S. President Barack Obama’s (2016) final address to the UN General Assembly, he urged the need for democratic leaders to “make the case for democracy.” In 2018, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres (2018) cautioned that “[d]emocratic principles are under siege, and the rule of law is being undermined.” That year, French President Emmanuel Macron (2018) also bemoaned the “attacks on democracies through the rise of illiberalism.” Earlier this year, President Joe Biden (2021a) forewarned that “your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded: autocracy or democracy.” And during his address to a joint session of Congress, Biden (2021b) elaborated: “We have to prove democracy still works — that our government still works and we can deliver for our people. . . . If we do that, we will meet the center challenge of the age by proving that democracy is durable.”
Yet, the purpose of global citizenship is to forge common bonds and identities (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2014; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2015). Given that most countries are not liberal democracies, the exclusion of non- or anti-democratic countries could (or would) serve to divide the global community and impede work on important issues such as climate change and trade. It is indeed true that, since the turn of the 21st century, democratic and undemocratic countries alike have worked together to achieve notable global agreements and breakthroughs. For example, in 2001, many members of the international community signed the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Halewood, 2013). Additionally, in 2015, nearly two hundred nations representing the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change entered into the Paris Agreement (Streck et al., 2016).
It is also true that liberal democratic governance has its flaws, and can and should be subject to criticism. Too often such societies fail to live up to their promise, and too often minorities do not enjoy the same privileges as the majority. From socio-economic disadvantage to discrimination, there is much to be done to right the wrongs that still exist in liberal democratic countries. But this is a debate that democracy allows. There is only so much that can be improved or achieved under autocratic governments which, by their very nature, stifle dissent and deny basic rights and freedoms.
Those who define the agenda of global citizenship should examine, if not recognize, the importance of liberal democratic governance and principles to achieve the goals of global citizenship. According to a 2018 report from The Economist, the growing tide of semi- or anti-democratic governments has led to: “declining popular participation in elections and politics”; “weaknesses in the functioning of government”; “declining trust in institutions”; “dwindling appeal of mainstream representative parties”; “growing influence of unelected, unaccountable institutions and expert bodies”; “widening gap between political elites and electorates”; “decline in media freedoms”; and “erosion of civil liberties, including curbs on free speech” (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2018, p. 3). Whatever one’s views on liberal democracy, such governance does more than any other form of government to advance the agenda of human and civil rights (Strege, 1994).
When global citizenship is taught in the classroom and elsewhere, such instruction should explore the role of liberal democracy in promoting global citizenship. We cannot lose sight of the effects of systemic, cross-national deprivation of human and civil rights. It is hard to see how we can achieve all of the aspirations of global citizenship—including diversity, non-discrimination, and social justice (to name a few)—without the success and acceptance of core liberal democratic values for generations to come.
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Carter, A. (2001). The political theory of global citizenship. Routledge.
Chong, E. K. M. (2015). Global citizenship education and Hong Kong’s secondary school curriculum guidelines. Asian Education and Development Studies, 4(2), 221-247.
Davies, I., Evans, M., & Reid, A. (2005). Globalising citizenship education? A critique of ‘global education’ and ‘citizenship education’. British Journal of Educational Studies, 53(1), 66-89.
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Evans, M., Ingram, L., MacDonald, A., & Weber, N. (2009). Mapping the ‘global dimension’ of citizenship education in Canada: The complex interplay between theory, practice and context. Citizenship Teaching and Learning, 5(2), 16-34.
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Foa, R. S., & Mounk, Y. (2016). The danger of deconsolidation: The democratic disconnect. Journal of Democracy, 27(3), 5-17.
Frayer, J. M., & Suliman, A. (2021, April 7). ‘Milk Tea Alliance’ brews democracy online among young activists across Asia. Retrieved from
Halewood, M. (2013). What kind of goods are plant genetic resources for food and agriculture? Towards the identification and development of a new global commons. International Journal of the Commons, 7(2), 278-312.
Motani, Y. (2007). The emergence of global citizenship education in Japan. In E. D. Stevick & B. Levinson (Eds.), Reimagining civic education: How diverse societies form democratic citizens (pp. 271-291). Rowman & Littlefield.
Myers, J. P. (Ed.). (2020). Research on teaching global issues: Pedagogy for global citizenship education. Information Age Publishing.
Noddings, N. (2005). Educating citizens for global awareness. Teachers College Press.
Reysen, S., & Katzarska-Miller, I. (2013). A model of global citizenship: Antecedents and outcomes. International Journal of Psychology, 48(5), 858-870.
Streck, C., Keenlyside, P., & von Unger, M. (2016). The Paris Agreement: A new beginning. Journal for European Environmental & Planning Law, 13, 3-29.
Strege, M. (1994). Universal human rights and declaration. disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory, 3(2), 1-14.
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. (2014). Global citizenship education: Preparing learners for the challenges of the 21st century. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000227729
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. (2015). Global citizenship education: Topics and learning objectives. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000232993
Does China Make the World Flat? Using Compelling Questions and Creating C3 Inquiries for the Social Studies Classroom
Starlynn Nance
Tension engulfs the room and faces begin to crinkle into frowns as a collective look of confusion crosses thirty seventh grader’s faces as they read the slide “Does China make the world flat?” Students look at each other and then back at the slide. Several verbal exclamations of “what?’ and “the world is round!” bellows across the room. Smiling sweetly, the teacher only states, “write it in your journal” before the bell rings and the bewildered seventh graders are dismissed from world history class. This exchange is the end of dimension one from the C3 unit titled Ancient China.
National Council for the Social Studies: C3 Inquiry Framework
In How We Think (1910), Dewey discusses how important inquiry is to children. He stressed that children need to learn by doing and trying different things not just memorizing and repeating the information to the teacher.
Inquiry is simply, investigating. In social studies, teachers should set up lessons of inquiry to include diverse historical content and let students ask questions, then investigate to find the answers. Once a student has a firm foundation of the content, they can then begin to start connecting the past to the present. They may start to ask questions about their own community after learning about civil rights concerning injustice, voting rights in the community, or lack of representation on city council. Once that connection is made, students need guidance to develop skills to research, answer questions, and learn how, for example, to start a grassroots campaign for change.
An inquiry framework to teach these skill sets is called the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) from the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). The framework (2017) uses concepts, facts, tools, disciplinary and content literacies to successfully complete an inquiry in a social studies classroom (p. 17). It consists of four dimensions that build an inquiry arc and move the students through questioning, content, evaluation of sources, and eventual action to make change. Studying social studies, especially the four content areas highlighted in dimension two (history, civics, economics, geography), show students that the precepts of democracy have not applied to all people in their history book. This connection is key to inquiry. For students to learn to speak out against bullying, discrimination, systemic racism and other abuses against themselves or democracy, teachers need to use inquiry so students can learn skills to “take action”.
That’s All Well and Good, But HOW Do I Create One?
This article will feature a thorough explanation of creating C3’s in the social studies classroom. Most teachers fit the C3 around a premade unit, such as the Ancient China unit in the introduction or create a C3 that is a stand-alone multiple day lesson plan like “Why Vote?” (This C3 can be found in Teaching the College, Career, and Civic Life Framework: Exploring Inquiry-based Instruction in Social Studies published by NCSS.) The “Why Vote” C3 has been taught in a social studies methods course, tenth grade civics, ninth and tenth grade government, eighth grade United States history and other courses by teachers in the past several years in a midwestern state following their graduation from the social studies program.
The C3 contains an inquiry arc and consists of four dimensions and subsections of those dimensions. The first dimension develops two types of questions, compelling and supporting. Questioning is a main component of inquiry and allows students to develop both styles of questions to increase critical thinking and knowledge of content. Dimension two is the mainstay of the framework and encourages multidisciplinary (history, civics, geography, and economics) content literacy to emerge. Students use relevant sources, in dimension three, to develop claims and counterclaims while dimension four supports inquiry and disciplinary literacy by retrieving and analyzing data, answering student developed questions, communicating conclusions, and taking informed action. Moving the students through these four dimensions can teach democratic skills and hopefully develop a more skilled, active, and responsible citizen.
Dimension One
This dimension is instructing students to answer and develop questions that are compelling and supporting. A compelling question consists of a long-lasting issue, such as war, civil rights, or privacy while supporting questions include extracting answers from a source, finding definitions, or establishing a series of steps. An example of a compelling question would be “is the Revolutionary War really revolutionary?” Supporting questions deal with the content directly and help students analyze documents or any other sources. Supporting questions could be “is there bias in the document?”, “who wrote the document?”, or “how long did it take the Native Americans to move from X to Y in the removal process?” Supporting questions from all documents or sources help answer the compelling question by extracting evidence from all sources retrieved.
Step 1: Selection of content. As the title suggests, content is the first step to beginning dimension one. Gather the curriculum map, state standards, objectives, and premade unit or specific stand-alone topic to begin the C3 and develop dimension one. Using the objectives, begin to create a compelling question and supporting questions for the unit. Both are used throughout the C3 to develop students thinking and give substance to the essay written after dimension four.
Step 2:The compelling question and supporting questions. From experience, creating a compelling question that has an element of good confusion gets the students to think. As suggested by the C3 text, “is the Revolutionary War really revolutionary?” is a question that needs research to answer. Just from presenting the compelling question, supporting questions begin to emerge from the students, like, “what is a revolution?” “have there been any other revolutions in history?” “when was the revolution?”, etc. Students will use their textbooks, appropriate internet sources, etc. to find the answers to their questions. The teachers will facilitate this activity and fill in gaps of content when necessary.
Concerning compelling questions, the goal is not to have a textbook cookie cutter answer that all the students cut and paste from their notes or from an internet section of content. The goal is for students to be able to answer yes or no and then develop their argument using sources that are given or gathered throughout the C3. There is no correct answer, only evidenced based answers. Compelling questions are asked after every dimension as a formative assessment to gather information about the students learning of the content and sources. At the end of dimension four, the compelling question essay is the summative or the authentic assessment.
Step 3: The hook. After the compelling question is designed, the teacher needs a hook to get the students interested in the unit topic. Hooks can look different depending on the topic or content objectives pulled from the curriculum map. Hooks can be a song, a poem, a picture, a painting, an excerpt of a primary source, a game, a simulation, or part of a movie/documentary. Usually, the hook relates to the compelling question in some aspect. The goal is to spark interest in a topic and connect it to the compelling question. For example, to start a Cold War C3, one teacher used gamification to begin the unit where students became CIA agents trying to catch a Soviet sleeper agent in the United States. The goal was to get the students to feel stress and tension while going through the gamification CIA missions. The teacher asked the students about their feelings and one student exclaimed, “I was stressed!” This led to a whole class grand discussion about tension between the two nations and eventually at the end of the class, the teacher displayed the compelling question, “How hot was the Cold War?”
Dimension Two
Dimension Two is applying disciplinary concepts and tools using the four disciplines of history, geography, civics, and economics. In the framework (2017), teachers work with conceptual concepts, such as “explain the powers and limits of the three branches of government, public officials and bureaucracies at different levels in the US and other countries” rather than curricular content that would state, “identify every form of government” (p. 29). The curricular content will be found in the state standards and/or local curriculum maps.
Step 1: Gather curricular and conceptual content. Since each state and district is different, gather what you need for your unit. This could include, pre-made units, state standards, district curriculum maps, lesson objectives and/or unit goals. If you need to take the state standards and develop goals, objectives, etc. please do that during this step.
Step 2: Disciplines. Once you have what you need, make sure that the unit covers the four main disciplines of history, geography, civics, and economics inside the unit. The C3 text has standards to help focus your unit and is found at https://www.socialstudies.org/standards/c3.
Step 3: Create dimension two unit and lessons. Dimension Two is designed for the teacher to use content literacy to teach the facts, generalizations, concepts, etc. of the content required by the district and/or the state. Teachers can use pre-made units containing different instructional strategies and activities for students to accomplish the objectives. Display the compelling question before starting dimension two, so the students have a lens to “look” through as they learn about content and accomplish the objectives. Remember to include all disciplines in the content.
Step 4 Assessment. At this time in the C3, give the students a content assessment. This could be your own test from the pre-made unit or the common assessment used by your data team.
Dimension Three
This dimension is skill based by evaluating sources and using evidence. Students use the questions from dimension one to gather and evaluate sources that help answer those questions. After this is complete, students will develop claims (arguments) and counterclaims (arguments) using the evidence to support those claims. Students develop their own supporting questions and begin to gather evidence asking those questions along the way. This allows them to progress through the inquiry and begin to develop solutions to a problem they see in the community. Dimension three and four are student centered where the teacher becomes a facilitator.
Step 2: Evidence. After students have mastered the historical thinking skills, the teacher will transition to dimension three by gathering resources for a balanced set of evidence or have a list of appropriate texts and websites for research. This dimension is for students to take control over their learning to develop claims/arguments for compelling questions students create in addition to the compelling question from the beginning of the unit. Focusing on the content from dimension two and the new sources presented or collected, the teacher will take a facilitator role asking students questions when students get in a bind, rather than giving any answers.
Step 3: Writing an essay or other type of authentic assessment. After completion of dimensions one through three, students are ready to write an essay (authentic assessment) about what their claim is to the compelling question and use evidence found and connect content from dimension two. Many different methods can be found to help the students complete the essay but one, has been efficient in working with the C3 framework and is called the P.E.E.L. One example from online can be found at, https://www.virtuallibrary.info/peel-paragraph-writing.html.
Dimension Four
Civic engagement is a very important part for students to encounter as a developing citizen. Dimension four is the authentic assessment for students to communicate conclusions and take informed action. In dimension four, the students usually show the connections from dimension two, curricular and conceptual concepts, to today and their own lives. Then they develop a plan and act on that plan to solve a problem they found with the school or local community. The teacher continues to facilitate during this dimension as the students gain agency and sophistication to solve problems in a democracy.
Step 1: The essay and then the issue. Using the essay as a jumping off point, ask the students to connect claims made in the essay to today’s current events. Have the students discuss this in small groups, like Think, Pair, Share, four-to-five-member small groups, or as a whole class discussion. The teacher, only a facilitator, lists the issues on the board, and all are considered equal. Students discuss and narrow down the list of issues to one that works within school policy, time frames, COVID-policies, etc. The students narrow the issue and then create a plan to implement to solve the issue/problem that has arisen from understanding the content in dimensions two and three. For example, the seventh-grade class studying Ancient China decided that the world was flat because of globalization and trade as far back as the Silk Roads. Students began to learn about economics and sweat shops in China. After doing research, they wanted to bring the issues of unfair wages, bad working conditions, and child labor of sweatshops in China to their community.
Step 2 Research, creating a plan, communicating conclusions, and implementing action. After the students have decided on an issue, they need to research the issue. Using dimensions two and three as a format, the students need to create a compelling and supporting questions concerning their issue. Student research, answering their questions, and then create a plan to combat the problem/issue they chose. This needs to be written in another P.E.E.L because it will be shared to groups or individuals that are stakeholders. Then the students need to implement the action.
For example, the seventh graders found what fair trade meant, how to find fair trade businesses and then began to list clothing they wore, stores they shopped at, and business in the town. They then researched to see if these were fair trade or not. After finding the answers, the class wrote a P.E.E.L and presented it to the teacher and principal. The P.E.E.L described their compelling question and gave evidence of why they needed to create a public service announcement (PSA) for the community concerning fair trade. Due to restrictions, the students decided to communicate through social media and tagged all the fair-trade companies for consumers to consider.
Why Vote?: A C3 Example Lesson Plan for Teachers
NCSS has published two bulletins titled Teaching: The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework: Exploring Inquiry-Based Instruction in Social Studies I and II. In the first bulletin, number 114, it states, “teachers will need to be intentional about making space in the curriculum, selecting sources, building in scaffolding, and incorporating related assessments in order to support students in this process…teachers will need to provide experiences that allow students to practice gathering information from sources and making claims supported with evidence” (p. 5). This bulletin is the perfect guide to assist teachers in making the space to practice inquiry and for students to develop an action plan and follow through to make change. These C3 topics can be implemented in pre-made units or as stand-alone C3s to enhance a topic taught in the social studies classroom.
A course taught at a midwestern university incorporates a chapter from this text to teach future social studies teachers how to implement the C3 Framework into units and practice the inquiry during a mid-level teaching observation and student teaching requirement. Student and first year teachers (from the program) have adapted this framework and taught it from middle school through high school. The chapter is titled Why Vote? Understanding Elections, The Candidates, and Why Any of This Matters and was created by the Mikva Challenge. The chapter moves the students through the four dimensions of the C3 Framework to answer the compelling question: Why Vote? The next few paragraphs will take the reader through the C3 as it was taught in the methods course and then in seventh through twelfth grade classrooms by graduates of the program.
Dimension One
Dimension One begins with a bell ringer on the first day of the unit titled Civil Rights. On the screen, a picture of two young men is shown to the students. The picture is black and white and shows one with his face painted white with VOTE on his forehead with the other standing behind him, holding an American flag. The students are asked to fill in a graphic organizer about the photograph. Then the students are asked to source the photograph. After finding the answer using a search engine, a grand conversation begins to discuss key questions about the photograph and the compelling question is displayed at the end of the class. The teacher facilitates another grand conversation, instructing the students to develop another graphic organizer to help map out the compelling question: Why Vote?
Dimension Two
Dimension Two consists of learning stations and curricular content. Teachers teach the local and state standards regarding the Civil Rights unit. This content is connected to examples from today about civil rights and voting through learning stations. The teacher uses primary sources to connect the past to the present. Different categories, such as, “I vote…because I care about issues,” are introduced in the stations. Students work in groups using the sources connecting the curricular content to the contextual content from both state/local and national standards.
Dimension Three
Dimension Three is more student centered. Students begin to ask other questions in addition to Why Vote? One of the most popular questions is: why do people not vote? This requires students to search for the answer to this question using data from different governmental sources. Then to check this data, the students create their own data set from the community they live in. From the data set, other supporting and compelling questions arise, and the students begin to find problems about voting in their community. The students write an essay answering the compelling question.
Dimension Four
Students develop an action plan and carry it out after completing dimension four communicating the conclusions found through their inquiry. The students then carry out their plan that answered the question: Why Vote?
Although the paragraphs seem to make the inquiry simple and quick, it is not. Inquiry is messy and sometimes very frustrating. Some questions that arise are hard to answer or cannot be answered. Students must have the space and time to follow the inquiry to the end. This does take many days but with the right amount of planning it will fit with pre-made units already in the curriculum.
As a side note, from the many classrooms I have observed, including my own, when this framework is presented, the middle or high school students love it. They get very excited to see their plan take root and feel pride in their accomplishments as developing citizens. They also learn to compromise and evaluate their own thinking and work with others. It is a truly a collaborative process. A hard process, a learning process, but a very rewarding process.
Conclusion
C3 is an inquiry framework from NCSS that takes the students through a hook of interest to implementation of action in four dimensions. Through the process, students learn a variety of historical thinking skills, collaboration, resilience, evaluation, writing, and how to develop questions and research answers. Having the students move through this process is what Dewey may have envisioned in How We Think. Getting the students attention, teaching content, facilitating student learning, and watching students complete a plan of action to implement it can be the spark students need to develop as a citizen and start to make change in home town communities.
References
Dewey, J.(1910). How We Think. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co.
Herczog, M. (2013) Social Studies for the Next Generation: Purposes, Practices, and Implications of the College, Career, and Civic Life Framework for Social Studies State Standards. Bulletin 113, National Council for the Social Studies, Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://www.socialstudies.org/standards/c3
New Jersey’s Path to a Required Course in Civics for Students
Arlene Gardner, New Jersey Center for Civic Education
“An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.“ “…if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is…to inform their discretion by education” – Thomas Jefferson, 1820
Background: Short History of Civic Education
Public schools were established with the goal of creating informed citizens. Civic literacy was seen as essential to maintaining a representative democracy and the schools were viewed as the place for young people to learn about their government. In a multiethnic, multi-religious country based on the shared secular ideas of liberty and justice rather than the “blood and soil” nationalism of European countries, a common understanding and appreciation of these fundamental American values was seen as critical.
Until the 1960s, it was common for schools to have civics courses in upper elementary and middle school classes, as well as a separate, required course in civics and government in high school.[1] This pattern broke down in the 1960’s and 1970’s, when social unrest over civil rights, the war in Vietnam and other issues weakened the agreement about core values and put democratic institutions on the defensive, leading to multicultural and other approaches to teaching history and the elimination of civics course in many states, including New Jersey.[2]
By the 1980s, the civic mission of schools was basically abandoned in favor of preparing a new generation of skilled workers. The focus was shifted towards “core” testable subjects like math and reading. The No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 accelerated this push with the hope that test scores in reading and math would predict and improve college and workplace performance.[3] Time spent on social studies was reduced in many schools.[4] In 2011, all federal funding for civics and social studies was eliminated.[5]
Meanwhile, national assessments have shown how little our young people know about government or the role of a citizen in a democracy. While math and reading skills have improved since 1998, less than a quarter of students demonstrated proficiency on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Civics in 1998, 2006, 2010, 2014 or 2018.[6] The questions are basic and include multiple choice responses. Yet, for example, in 2018, only 50 percent of eighth grade students understood that the U.S. Congress has the primary legislative power to pass bills.[7] African American and Hispanic students were twice as likely as white students to score below proficient on national assessments.[8] The level of proficiency is related to the amount of instructional time allocated to civics. While only 24% of eighth grade students demonstrated proficiency in civics on the most recent assessment in 2018, eighth graders whose social studies teachers spent at least three hours per week on the subject significantly outperformed their peers who had less instructional time in civics.[9]
With funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a nationwide coalition to study and reinvigorate the civic mission of schools was formed in 2003.[10] The Carnegie Corporation follow-up study in 2010 conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, the National Conference on Citizenship, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, and the American Bar Association Division for Public Education, found that students who receive effective education in social studies are more likely to vote, four times more likely to volunteer and work on community issues, and are generally more confident in their ability to communicate ideas with their elected representatives.[11] “Effective education” included explicit instruction regarding government, law and democracy; discussions of current events and controversial issues; participation in simulated democratic processes and service learning. [12]
The NJ Coalition to Support the Civic Mission of Schools
By 2004, thirty states had a required civics course. But, there was no requirement for civics at any grade level in New Jersey. It was left to local discretion. With funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Fund for New Jersey, a New Jersey Coalition to Support the Civic Mission of Schools (the Coalition)–a statewide partnership of educators, parents, school administrators, business leaders, legislators and others interested in the future of our civic education and our democracy–was created. Several statewide conferences were held resulting in the recommendation that all New Jersey public school districts be required to have a course of study in civics.
An Inventory of Civic Education in New Jersey conducted in the fall of 2004 disclosed that only 39% of New Jersey school districts required all of their students to take a civics course in any grade.While those students taking an American government elective (10 to 20% of the student body of any given high school) might have the opportunity to participate in a class that requires an understanding of American constitutional democracy and the responsibilities and role of the citizen, students in most New Jersey school districts were exposed to one week to one month of civic content knowledge as part of U.S. history, with little emphasis on the importance of citizen action. The inventory also revealed that less than 35% of school districts had offered a professional development program in civics or government over the prior five years, and the vast majority of school districts indicated that up-to-date, inexpensive classroom materials and professional development would be an effective way to improve civic education.[13]
Following the financial crisis and recession in 2008, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine sought to have financial literacy taught in New Jersey’s schools. Only three states (Utah, Missouri and Tennessee) required a semester of financial literacy at the time, while 18 other states required that personal finance be incorporated into other subjects.[14] While the issue was being discussed by the New Jersey State Board of Education, the New Jersey Center for Civic Education at Rutgers University (the Center) testified on behalf of the Coalition that a semester of financial literacy should be accompanied by a required semester of civics. The New Jersey School Boards Association, the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, and others protested that there were already too many high school requirements. The State Board of Education added a semester of financial literacy to the high school requirements but did not include a semester of civics.[15]
The Quest for a Civics Requirement in Middle School
After further discussion, the Coalition concluded that perhaps the better place for a required civics course was in middle school. Current New Jersey law required a course in New Jersey history, geography and community civics in an upper elementary grade (NJSA 18A:35-3) and two years of United States history in high school (NJSA 18A:35-1) but nothing was required in middle school. By age 11 or 12 (sixth or seventh grade), students have the ability to do the higher order thinking necessary for a rigorous, relevant, reflective course in civics, and students at this age are more open to attitudinal changes than at older ages.[16] A required civics course in middle school would help to ensure that all New Jersey students (even those who may drop out of school at age 16) have the opportunity to gain the knowledge and skills for informed, active citizenship.
By 2012, forty other states had a required course in civics.[17] The Center drafted a bill requiring civics in middle school, which was introduced in the New Jersey Legislature with bipartisan support. Unfortunately, Governor Chris Christie, following the advice of his Education Commissioner Chris Cerf, believed that the New Jersey Student Learning Standards for Social Studies were sufficient and a civics requirement was not necessary. The Center argued that the social studies standards were written within a chronology, and that many basic civic concepts (such as the purpose of government, the basis of authority and its abuse, privacy, judicial review, the common good, and enlightened self-interest) were not included within the historical framework of standard 6.1 and were not being taught.[18] Although standard 6.3 outlined specific activities that students should take at various grade levels, it failed to offer a broad understanding of how our constitutional democracy functions and the role of the citizen.[19] The Center, with support from the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, stressed that only a fully articulated civics course, along with professional development and resources for teachers, could ensure that every New Jersey student would participate in an engaging, critical thinking and content-rich course of study in civics. However, once it was clear that Governor Christie did not support the idea, the bill was no longer pursued by its legislative sponsors.
Meanwhile, as the center in American politics seemed to split into two warring factions and faith in government plummeted, the momentum to promote and reinvigorate the civic mission of schools as a response was building both nationally and in New Jersey, with numerous articles in newspapers and law and policy reviews.[20] For a better understanding of what a robust civic education can do, in 2019 the Center invited several legislators, as well as Governor Phil Murphy’s Attorney General, Gurbir Singh Grewal, and Secretary of State, Tahesha Way, to the statewide simulated legislative hearings for We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution so thatthey could see first-hand how well-informed, quick thinking and articulate students can be when they participate in an engaging civic education program.
In 2019, Senator Shirley Turner introduced a bill to require a course of study in civics in middle schools. Other legislators were concerned that civic education should not end in middle school. Senator Troy Singleton had introduced a bill to require that civics be taught in high school. The Center noted that N.J.S.A. 18A:35-2 already mandated that civics, economics and New Jersey history and government be taught as part of the required two years of U.S. history in high school, although many social studies supervisors and teachers indicated that this was not happening. To address both the middle and high school concerns, the two bills were merged into a substitute bill, S-854, sponsored by Senators Turner, Singleton and numerous other cosponsors, to require a course in civics in middle school beginning with the 2022 school year and directing the Center to provide professional development and resources for middle AND high school teachers. Titled “Laura Wooten’s Law” after a Mercer County African American woman who served as a poll worker for 79 years, S-854 was unanimously passed by the New Jersey Senate on January 28, 2021, and an identical bill, A-3394 was unanimously passed by the New Jersey Assembly on May 20, 2021.[21]
By directing the New Jersey Center for Civic Education at Rutgers, The State University, to provide the necessary professional development and resources, the legislation recognized that the Center works with national civic organizations as well as the New Jersey Social Studies Supervisors Association and the New Jersey Council for the Social Studies; has been providing professional development and resources for New Jersey’s teachers for 30 years; and has the expertise and experience to offer professional development to teachers from all over the state efficiently and effectively.[22]
Civics must be more than how government functions
Civic education is seen by Americans of all political stripes as the most positive and impactful lever to strengthen national identity.[23] High quality, school-based civics for all learners is foundational to our shared civic strength. However, while 42 states (New Jersey will make it 43) require at least one civics course, few incorporate proven pedagogical principles like classroom-based deliberation and decision-making, critical discussion of current events, simulations of democratic processes, guided debates and deliberations, project-based learning, service learning or media literacy.[24]
S-854 requires the middle school civics course to broadly include “the principles and ideals underlying the American system of constitutional democracy, the function and limitations of government, and the role of a citizen in a democratic society”.[25] Following the legislation, the course should provide explicit and coherent knowledge about how the American system of constitutional democracy functions. The goal, however, is not simply content knowledge about how government works, but also an understanding of the values and ideals that underlie our system of government, and, probably most importantly, the role of the citizen in a democratic society. The focus is on developing critical thinking skills and civic dispositions in addition to civic knowledge, consistent with many of the student performance expectations in the New Jersey Student Learning Standards, which are also to go into effect starting in September 2022.[26]
One of the primary reasons our nation’s founders envisioned a substantial system of public education system was to prepare youth to be active participants in our system of self-government. The responsibilities of each citizen were assumed to go far beyond casting a vote: protecting the common good would require developing students’ critical thinking and communication skills, along with civic virtues. If the goal is for our young people to become informed, active citizens, they need instruction about how government functions and about the role of the citizen, political participation and deliberation, democratic principles, and civic mindedness. Our young people need to develop critical thinking skills so that they know how to examine and evaluate evidence to determine what supports fact-based truth. They need to develop communication skills so that they are able to civilly discuss controversial issues and to influence public policy. Our future citizens need to develop civic dispositions so that they appreciate WHY they should be involved in influencing public policy for the common good.
To achieve this goal, the Center has prepared an Inquiry Framework of questions to guide the development of a middle school civics curriculum. Links to suggested lessons, classrooms activities and resources are being added over the summer, with professional development to begin in August 2021 and continue through 2022 and into the future. Developing a suggested curriculum guide integrating civics, economics, and New Jersey history and government into the required U.S. History course in high school will begin in the fall of 2021. A robust civics education program that provides the skills for every student to be able to negotiate life, work and government offers the best promise for equality and justice for all. New Jersey can be at the forefront of reimagining civic learning for the 21st century. Join us in this endeavor!
World War II’s Technological Advancements in Aerial Warfare
Brianna Hatzold
A significant battle that played an enormous role in World War II that incorporated air crafts was the Allied invasion of mainland Europe at Normandy Beach in France, Operation Overload. This epic invasion was a very crucial climatic battle of World War II. The invasion of Normandy which is commonly referred to as D-Day consisted of a series of complex operations that dealt over several of days. This operation’s goal was to defend the beaches of Normandy heavily and to establish a foothold on the European continent. The first step of the operation was the landing which would prove a grueling march to the city of Berlin to attack the Nazi regime. It is an understating to even try and describe the gigantic role the Allied air forces played in the invasion. Without the assistance provided from the Allied air force the operation could not have happened. The Allied air force, with the contribution of Allied fighter planes, transports, bombers, reconnaissance planes and troop carriers made the events on D-Day possible. In the D-Day operation approximately 13,000 Allied aircrafts participated. D-Day marks one of the largest aerial operations in history. This precedent action was a learning experience that further developed the understanding of how aircrafts can operate as well as how they would interact. Operation D-Day was a very critical and complex mission that commanders understood and accepted the fact that there will be great losses in order to have a control over a beachhead. During this there was a low pressure weather system in England and the coast of France. With the low weather in these areas it then resulted in much confusion when airplanes departed from their bases in England. On top of that, the ceilings forced drop planes to fly at much lower altitudes then what was planned. Then there was also a troubling overcast layer that made it difficult for bombers to targets. Some airplanes even crashed into one another or went missing.
June 6, 1944 the operation commenced in the dark early-morning. This complex mission was a surprise to Germany. German commanders believed that the weather was poor conditions for the Allied powers to initiate an attack. The aerial operation had several phases in which immensely contributed to the success of the invasion. The first phase consisted of an aerial bombardment on the German emplacements, artillery and supply lines, that were on the beach of Normandy. In this first phase, it used heavy bombers and attack planes. Aircrafts such as the British Lancaster, American B-17 Flying Fortress and the Hawker Typhoons were in action to breakdown the enemy’s defenses. Allied commanders were hopeful that the bombings would neutralize the enemy’s defenses. However, it did not. German forces seemed to be still intact and feared of.
Hundreds of American C-47s were also at this scene. Acting as a supply plane the C-47 was capable to hold up to 6,000 pounds of cargo on their journey bearing a fully assembled vehicle or even a 37-mm cannon. When acting as a troop transporter it can hold 28 soldiers that are fully geared. If it was acting as a medical airlift it had the capacity to hold up to 14 stretcher patients as well as three nurses. According to Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, the C-47 was the most important piece of equipment. These aircrafts took off from a base that was located in central England which was approximately two hours flying time away from Normandy. Joe Crouch and his pathfinders were the first Americans to reach the outskirts of France in the early hours on the day of June 6, 1944. Him and his men took off it the darkness around 9:50 p.m. on June 5th. Joe Crouch’s small fleet of armless C-47s began to depart, leaving England in five-minute intervals. His fleets C-47s carried up to 200 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne, the first pathfinders that played a role in the invasion. The pathfinders’ duties were to mark drop zones behind the beaches of Normandy by placing lights and radar beacons.
Once in the air, the American C-47s then congregated into several V-formations. Each plane held more than a dozen paratroopers. In the morning of D-Day there were hundreds of planes that transported more than 13,000 paratroopers beyond the beach, encroaching on occupied France. The paratroopers were airborne fighters that would leap from these aircrafts into occupied France to cut off the Germans from behind. With the low weather in England and in France in the early morning, it made the airborne operation impossible to run swiftly like planned. About two-thirds of the courageous paratroopers landed way off of the ideal jump zone destinations. With the paratroopers being displaced all over France in incorrect areas it led to great chaos. As Allied soldiers desperately tried to regroup their troops, they encountered the Germans then resulting in a series of guerilla skirmishes.
During the invasion of Normandy, the Waco-CG Hadrian played an enormous role in the war effort. This aircraft did a fantastic job moving in troops and supplies onto the beaches. the Waco-CG Hadrian landed thousands of allied soldiers behind enemy lines with guns and equipment. It even was capable of carrying a Jeep or Howitzer into the war scene. This aircraft was easy to make and not costly to construct. Another wave of support came to troops hours later in gliders. The gliders arrived pre-dawn hours due to when the airborne troops. They went during that time because the airborne men could not wait incredibly long to resupply its troops with equipment as well as fighting off the Germans. This brought a mass amount of difficulty though due to landing at night. There were numerous variables that fliers could have faced. For instance: landing in an occupied territory, landing into fields that held defensive features, other problematic geography landscapes, anti-glider poles, ditches, and so on. Pilots reported that it was extremely difficult to see and that often times they were not able to see until their craft had touched ground. Many of the gliders crashed with fatalities. Despite the problematic situations these soldiers faced, the glider invasion was highly successful. The gliders were able to hold around 15 troops or to transport heavy equipment. Horsa gliders were larger than the Waco Gliders and could carry up to 30 troops.
The great contribution from C-47s as well as the Waco-CG Hadrian allowed the Allied forces to come out on top and to have a gateway into the European theater. D-Day is one of the most famous and the most significant battles that occurred in World War II. Without the reinforcement from aircrafts by supplying soldiers and equipment, then D-Day would not have been possible. Air crafts did far more for the war effort than one may think. Through air crafts, especially in this battle, they totally transformed the war and open the door to “how” to incorporate air crafts.
How Do We Teach Politics in a Society Where Political Affiliations Have Become Toxic?
Nick Zolkiwsky
Throughout my time as a student from kindergarten up until the eighth grade, politics and government were never taught in my classes. To which I was not at all surprised, after all how do you teach a second grader the difference between a conservative and a liberal when they should be learning how to construct paragraphs and learn how to use a keyboard? Let alone how do you get them interested in such a topic? Even more importantly, how do we get them interested in the topic and teach them to respect others who may hold different political views?
The first time I can vividly recall politics being taught in my class was when I was in fourth grade and we were fastly approaching the 2008 Presidential election. During those short and brief lessons, my teachers did not tell us where Senators McCain or Obama sided on certain issues or even a basic background of the parties they were affiliated with. Instead, we were all taught to like Obama because he was younger and was the more “favorable” candidate among teachers at my elementary school. The same situation occurred four years later when I was in eighth grade and the 2012 election was approaching. To which I was genuinely surprised because at this point we were all teenagers and had a better understanding of how the world works compared to when we were still in grade school, at least I thought I did. However, it wasn’t until the 2016 election that my teachers actually began talking about the issues that Americans would be voting for and where Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood. While for the first time we were having open discussions about beliefs and the two major parties it was undoubtedly one of the most toxic environments one could have ever imagined. Instead of listening to each other oftentimes I would find classmates getting into heated arguments, which were then followed by one person attacking the personal character of the other. Even as a 17 year old I knew this was no way to hold political discussions. Where was the respect? Where were the listening skills? And most importantly, where was the maturity? The answer, nowhere to be found. So the question is, how do we, as teachers, teach and create a healthy environment where students can learn and discuss politics when we live in a society that becomes toxic when these discussions arise?
To say 2020 has been one of the most unpredictable years in recent memory would be an understatement. It’s been a 12 month period where every 30 days or so we are met with another apocalyptic type event: first it was wildfires, then a pandemic, then heightened racial issues, and to make it all the more fun we threw in a Presidential election into the mix. According to an article from “weareteachers.com” there are easy steps to teaching politics within the classroom in the current climate that we live in. The first step that the article suggests is to discuss biases and “fake news” within the American mainstream media. This is a perfect starting point as understanding biases will better help all students fully understand the concepts of politics and how different media outlets portray a candidate/policy than a rivaling network. This also opens up the door to teach students the importance of fact-checking and doing their own research, which in the past few years has become so much more important than ever. Unfortunately, due to the easy access to media and the increasing influence of social media, individuals will typically see a picture or a meme on Twitter or Instagram and assume it to be true. Not only will they outright believe it but they won’t even go through the effort of reading up on the issue or using that additional information to form their own opinion.
The next three steps that the article discusses are more so related to notifying parents that you are about to discuss politics within the class. As many social studies teachers know, politics is a very touchy subject to teach about, and as many teachers in general know, parents sometimes are not afraid to tell you how they really feel about you teaching a particular subject. What this step aims to do is to notify the parents before the lesson is taught and lay out for them how the subject will be delivered to the students. By doing so, not only will the parents be as caught up as their students are but, it better prepares them to answer those difficult questions that their children may ask at the dinner table or in some cases, provide clarification and context to when a student tells their parents what they did in school that day. In addition to notifying parents about the upcoming lessons on politics and how you intend on delivering the information, it is a good idea to also encourage parents to talk about politics with their students at home. This is done so not only will the students have a better understanding of what they are getting into and about to learn, but it will also help them start to relate to certain focal points and issues that personally matter to them and their family.
Lastly, once the day has arrived to start teaching about politics in your classroom there are a few ground rules that you should establish right off the bat. The first rule, and quite possibly the most important rule, is to ensure that your students will show respect and remain respectful during the lesson. The way I like to think of it is, respectful ears are ears that are open to hearing the voices of others without judgment. The next rule is more geared towards you as the teacher and that is to remain neutral on the subject matter. While it is oftentimes difficult to remain neutral on certain topics, you have to understand that some of your students might have little to no understanding of the issues that you are about to discuss. Rather than giving them a biased opinion, which they have learned about at this point, you are giving them a non-partisan view and allowing them to make their own opinions on the topic. The third and final rule is to make sure that the students know that their opinions are their own opinions and they have the right to have them. This can be very empowering for students, especially those in High School who now find themselves in the “young adult” category. By having their own free-formed opinions this helps them establish a sense of identity as to who they are and where their morals lie and if you think about it you’re killing two birds with one stone.
How you want to present the information is totally up to you, just as long as you feel that you can provide the necessary information and that the information provided will be retained by the students in the classroom. Some suggest that PowerPoints and lectures may be the best option because this allows students to ask questions throughout the lesson and does provide room for a short class discussion. The more you allow students to voice their opinions and ask questions shows that they are engaging in the topic and that they are getting curious about why things are the way that they are. Other ways could include holding a mini-election within your own classroom, however, this activity may take a few class periods to run its full course, but on the flip side is it keeps them engaged longer and it allows them to go home after class and do their own research to further their own side of the topic. The last way you could do it is a much more laissez-faire approach and that is an open class discussion where you go around and have students speak up on what they know about politics. In doing so, the students are teaching one another and it gives you the teacher the opportunity to expand on talking points, correct any misconceptions brought up and even guide them to areas of further discussion. However, the one drawback that this approach comes with is that you will have biased opinions from students, so be sure to neutralize any bias that could be presented and most importantly, if a student holds similar views as you do, do not promote those as the “correct” way of thinking.
In conclusion, it is safe to say that we live in a time like no other. Our political climate in our nation today has never been as divisive as it has been over the past few years. But we as educators and even future parents must realize that if we want to change the toxic climate that is our political spheres, then we must lead the charge. Show our students it’s okay to disagree with others and that you can still be friends just because one person voted for one candidate and the other voted for the opposite candidate. The sooner we implement respect in our classrooms and when discussing politics with younger generations the more likely they will pass those traits down to their children.
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