I sure was busy with online Hangouts this week, and I spent Thursday night with some teachers talking about Civics Education in the age of Trump and how educators can grapple with the start of this crazy presidency. The Educator Innovator session was quite interesting, I thought, as host Rachel Roberson used the Letters to the President concept from the Fall as a central focal point, and asked us to explore where a teacher goes from here.
I talked about the fatigue I am feeling in relation to the political stage these days and about striving for political balance in my classroom. I was interested to hear about the work being done by others in high school classrooms, libraries and programs that reached out to children of migrant workers. We all talked about finding ways to create and nurture the space in our classrooms for discussions to happen, no matter the political viewpoints of students.
Since one of our themes at the end of the discussion was finding ways to help young people focus on change at home, in their own community, as an empowering educational opportunity, I want to share out the new collection of resources from Educator Innovator called Local Election Toolkit. It has some great ideas and lesson plans, and uses Letters to the President as a rich resource.
Peace (one day at a time),
Kevin