Politics in the Classroom

Elections, current events, media literacy & knowledge

We are officially 2 weeks out from the election, and if you are a social studies teacher, or perhaps, anyone, you might be on edge.

Images created from Wikipedia Commons and author’s photograph of a button.

I know I have been, which is why I overreacted to a post on twitter a few weeks back:

Happily, I read the author’s next one before ranting:

Okay, I thought, these points are well taken. So I didn’t rant. I sat on it for awhile and my response is this post. (Or at least the start of one.)

There are absolutely reasons why teachers should discuss contemporary politics in their classes sometimes. In a government or civics class, it would be bizarre not to bring in contemporary issues. 

Students have questions about the world they live in. It is a perfect opportunity to model the kind of “astute and thoughtful” analysis Mr. Buck hopes students will have when they focus on academics. When there are contemporary issues that blow up, close to home or relate to the subject, how could you ignore them?

Take the winter of 1999: My students were reading about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868 while Bill Clinton was being impeached. I couldn’t have ignored the connection if I tried.

November 2000: Students had already taken the Constitution test, but they all wanted to review the Electoral College, as the nation waited to find out who our next president would be.

March 2014: I began a unit on the Cold War just days after Russia annexed Crimea.

Ever since 2020, I have been living through history while teaching it in ways that make the examples above seem quaint. It has been stressful and exhausting, but at the same time intoxicating. It is hard to temper one’s enthusiasm when students come into the classroom buzzing with questions and invested in whatever answers a teacher might provide.¹

But here’s where we have to be careful. The day after Trump’s state of the union speech in 2020 my students were jubilant describing Nancy Pelosi ripping Trump’s speech up. What a perfect opportunity to address Buck’s concerns in the tweet above. Can you imagine, I asked them, how you might have felt watching a Republican rip up a speech by President Obama? That sobered them up pretty quickly.

If we teach in a community whose political leanings mirror our own, it is incumbent upon educators to point out how different the reactions and discussions are in other classrooms around the country. We also can’t forget that even if our students think one way, their parents or other family members might think quite differently. Asking students—gently— about their sources, playing clips from video that demonstrate opposing takes on an issue, and analyzing headlines are but a few strategies I’ve used.

The knowledge piece

One of the biggest obstacles to classroom discussions about political issues is the lack of knowledge so many students have. As a middle schooler, I was not remotely interested in politics or current events. And although my parents regularly watched the evening news and read the paper, I don’t recall having family discussions about any of it. Many students come from similar backgrounds in which politics is rarely discussed, even in today’s more contentious environment. Often “class discussions” are actually just conversations between the teacher and a handful of students. Students who are not as aware can still gain from such discussions.

However, it is an even greater challenge when their knowledge gaps are more considerable. Students have always asked for clarification on terms like impeach, liberal vs. conservative and Democrat vs. Republican. But in the last few years, I have been asked by 7th and 8th graders to explain words such as Congress, foreign policy, economics, budget. I have been asked by 8th graders who purportedly passed the 7th grade Constitution test to explain how something becomes a law and why the Supreme Court can’t just say no.

I cannot say things like “since 9/11” because although most students have heard of 9/11, most of them don’t understand much about what happened that day. And in the last 2 years, I realized many similarly know little about January 6, 2021.

I point out these examples NOT to criticize or make fun of students, their parents or previous teachers. (I am certain there is a teacher who has one of my former students in their classroom right now who is wondering why this student doesn’t know something they ought to know.) My point is that there is so much students need to “know” in order to have any sort of meaningful understanding of the world we live in.

One year, during a unit on the Constitution, I realized that one of my students didn’t grasp what I meant by the 3 branches of government. I’ll call her Jolene. She was an inquisitive girl and reasonably bright. But there was so much she didn’t know. As we met during lunch to go over the Constitution, I realize she didn’t know what Washington, D.C was— not where it was, but what it was. The idea of a “capital” was fuzzy, as was “government,” so concepts like “3 branches” and “Congress” were hard to explain.

Jolene came to our school in December and she left in April. In between, she was often absent. Our school social worker filled me in on some of the struggles she was facing that were clearly more important than understanding the 3 branches of government.

Since then, I have wondered how many other students were fuzzy on concepts I assumed they knew. By 7th or 8th grade, it is almost too late to teach such basics— to say nothing about how deadly dull the teaching of such basics would be for students who already knew them. As I continue to reflect on the problems plaguing American education with the advantage of hindsight, I keep going back to grade school and the business of learning to read.

Teaching Politics in Kindergarten?

No, not politics. But governance, yes! Not every 8th grader can go on a class trip to Washington or to their state capital. But every kindergartner can go on a class trip to the school’s main office. What goes on in the office? What are the jobs those adults do? How do those jobs impact what happens in our kindergarten class? What is the school board? Where do they fit in?

Many grade school curricula have social studies units on “Our Community.” Such units lay the foundation for civics education. As we teach children to read, we need to teach words like community, rules, laws, vote, decisions, local, state, and nation so it will be easier to teach words like Congress, Democrat and Republican. Not to mention concepts like partisanship and polarization.

Please, no matter the age of young people in your life, and whatever your position— talk to kids about our government and the election.

And don’t forget to vote.

1. For teachers seeking guidance, check out an earlier post I wrote on the subject: Tips for Teaching about Current Events in US History Class. Check out the invaluable resources of the Digital Inquiry Group, formerly known as the Stanford History Education Group.