Is it possible for teachers to address the recent election results and similar sticky topics without being accused of pushing their own agenda onto their students?
by Abigail Whittington
“Mr. Shipe, are my parents going to have to leave this country?”
Ryan Shipe, a student from the University of Mary Washington who has been working with a Spotsylvania County public school as part of his education practicum this semester, received the question from one of his seventh graders. It was the day after the election victory of Donald Trump, whose campaign often vilified immigrants for taking American jobs.
The girl was not born in the United States, but she and her parents did enter the country legally. Shipe isn’t sure where she and her family are originally from, but he does know that her first language is Farsi, which means she is probably from the Middle East. Shipe was momentarily heartbroken by the question.
“Your parents are going to be fine,” he said. “Your teacher and I will make sure to protect you in the classroom. This classroom is a safe space.”
She thought about it for a minute and then returned to her normal, joyful self. Shipe admired the elasticity of her emotions. She was able to go from cheery to sad and serious to cheery again within a matter of a few minutes. He wished the same could be said about him.
Shipe was already upset about the election, but this student’s worries brought his disappointment back to the forefront of his mind. His glasses served a new purpose; they disguised watery tears forming behind them as just gleams in the glass. Shipe, a 6’2” male with light brown hair and a scruffy and scraggly beard to match, does not appear to be someone who is easily upset. He carries himself with professionalism- always dressed in button downs and slacks both as a teacher and a student. He even surprised himself when he had to excuse himself from the classroom in order to regain his composure. But his concerns came back later in the day, when a student whose parents were major supporters of Trump told a girl in his class that he couldn’t wait for her to get deported.
Shipe started asking himself a question facing many teachers these days: how to talk students following the heated 2016 election. Shipe noticed that many teachers tried to keep conversation away from the results of the election, worried about inserting their opinions into the classroom. Occasionally, a student would make comment about Trump or Hillary and the room would grow quite for a moment, but then the students would quickly go back to their usual playful banter. Sometime their conversations crossed the line into hate speech. How could he know when to step in?
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Following the election, the website The 74 Million, which reports on public school issues, compiled a list of 430 incidents of post-election bullying in the classroom. Many students emailed in stories about bullying or posted about them on Twitter. In this environment, many teachers who might typically avoid politics in the classroom are trying to figure out how to speak up.
“Probably for the first time, there have been some things said in the campaign that I can’t just ignore,” Erik Anderson, a U.S. government teacher in Edina, Minnesota told Madeline Will, a PBS reporter. “I have to say, ‘This isn’t right.’ I don’t remember ever before being unable to play it right down the middle.” Erik Anderson has always been able to remain neutral in his classes, but now he suddenly feels the need to intervene in discussion.
However, according to splcenter.org, a survey, which was distributed by several organizations to teachers K-12 after the election found that half of the teachers are hesitant to discuss the election in class because of the heightened emotion. Some even admitted that principals have told them to refrain from addressing the election in any way.
Shipe tried to observe his own college professors to see how they might react. But he found that even in the college setting, professors treated the subject with caution. Most of his professors kept their comments vague and to only a few sentences. However, one professor decided to dedicate forty minutes of his fifty minute class to discussing the election results.
That is, except for Colin Rafferty, whom Shipe is taking for creative nonfiction. Rafferty walked into class that day with a proposal. He politely offered his class the choice of talking about the election results and what will happen next or continuing on with his lecture about copy revision.
The class overwhelmingly chose to discuss the election results. The first few to speak were a little timid in voicing their opinion for fear that their peers would not agree, but as the discussion went on students became more willing to share their own experiences post-election.
“One girl in class said that she was walking on campus earlier that day and when she passed by a group of white male students, one of the men smacked her butt and yelled, ‘Trump won!,’” explained Shipe. Her classmates responded with expressions of shock and horror.
Another girl told the class that one student stood up in the dining hall and shouted, “The white are in power again!”
Raffery’s only contribution to the conversation was an understanding “okay” or an occasional nod to let students know that he is listening to them. He didn’t provide his opinion or criticize others. He was simply there to make sure the discussion stayed polite and calm as students shared their emotional responses.
The tone of the conversation was quite somber and occasionally rampant, but no one talked over anyone else or interrupted someone already talking. There was a mature level of respect among the students that Shipe believed helped contribute to the open discussion that taught him and his peers how to understand other people’s point of view on the same monumental event.
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For Rafferty, he knew that many students were devastated or scared by the election results. He wanted to provide a forum in which they could express themselves. But he knew that the decision might not be popular, and after the period was over, he wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision. He felt that those students who had supported Trump, might feel attacked. “I hope no one thought I did this to alienate them,” said Rafferty. “I felt that a discussion was just what some people needed. I had only good intentions, but we will see what happens when I get my evaluations back from students at the end of the semester.”
Shipe admired Rafferty’s approach to talking about the controversial topic. He dealt with the issues and the emotions of his students without bringing in his own political views or guiding the students in any specific direction of discussion. However, Shipe still believes that teachers should still have the ability to share their own opinions within the classroom without being criticized for pushing their own agenda onto impressionable students. The best way Shipe believes this can be achieved is by instilling the respect for others opinions within the classroom starting in elementary school. This is already an aim within schools, but Shipe believes that it could be more strongly enforced.
“I hope to achieve that same openness in my classroom when I am a teacher, but I’m still not sure how to do that in a high school setting,” said Shipe.
For now, he has decided to handle each incident he observe on a case by case basis. For example, he pulled aside the student who had cheered on the idea of his classmate being deported. Shipe then explained to him that deportation meant forcing someone to leave the country. “It was offensive and rude and a horrible thing to say,” he told the boy in a raised voice.
It took some time for the boy to understand, but when he did, he explained that he didn’t want her to leave. Shipe believes he was simply repeating the views of his parents without thinking them through. The boy then went back into the classroom and without even being provoked by Shipe or the teacher, he apologized to the girl and she, understanding that the boy was on the autism spectrum and may have had a mental fixation on Trump and his campaign, forgave him instantly.
“As a teacher, sometimes you have to step in to controversial situations,” said Shipe. “If you don’t, you aren’t doing your job; you aren’t creating better, more informed citizens.”