Yo, Miss! (No. 4)

Support Your Local Social Studies Teachers

Dec 04, 2022

The highlight of my week was attending the National Council for the Social Studies Conference (NCSS) in Philadelphia. I was there with PBS NewsHour Classroom, both reporting as media and presenting on a panel about the Journalism in Action curriculum. I finally met so many amazing people IRL, including my producer from PBS and friend Vicky Pasquantonio. After three years of hosting our PBS NewsHour Classroom Educator Voice Series and interacting with people on social media, it was amazing to meet everyone.

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When we first started our PBS NewsHour Classroom Zooms back in the spring of 2020, teachers were mostly concerned about Covid safety at school. Now way too many educators find themselves at the center of right-wing attacks intended to stoke culture wars to win elections. As a result, most of our conversations on the PBS zooms usually turn into educators expressing their concerns about the curriculum bans and book bans in their respective states. As I watch Republicans such as Mike Pompeo start to launch presidential campaigns and demonize the work of millions of educators, I am now deeply concerned about our own personal safety. When you have public figures characterizing our work as “filth” and “propaganda,” we have way too many recent examples of violent acts inspired by this hateful language.

I also fear that the attrition rate for teachers will get even worse if these right-wingers continue to attack teachers, public schools, and teacher’s unions. Here are two excellent articles that address the teacher shortage crisis in America: “America’s Broken Education System: Part 1 Why Teachers Are Quitting” and “Meet the 29-year-old Teacher with Four Degrees Who Wants To Join the Great Resignation”

In addition, I spoke to BuzzFeed’s Jen Adams in August about this crisis.

Social Studies Education is More Crucial Than Ever

As we have public figures expressing false yet dangerous antisemitic ideas, social studies education is more important than ever. In workshops that I attended at the NCSS conference, many of my fellow educators were grappling with how to address Ye’s praise of Hitler and Nazis as well as many other public figures voicing antisemitic comments. Teachers in the workshops shared how many of their students listen to Ye’s music and anticipate an array of questions from them on Monday. Considering that Ye has over 30 million followers on Twitter and there are an estimated 14.8 million Jews, it is important that everyone, not just teachers, call out his false statements with facts from history. One place to start: Facing History has an excellent lesson on the roots and impact of antisemitism. This is also a great lesson from the Zinn Education Project.

I think it is important that teachers empower young people with knowledge of history and also show them how they can personally help push back against the dangerous hate they witness, both online and offline. One great example to share with students is how so many people flooded the subreddit r/Kanye this weekend and turned it into a Holocaust awareness forum.

I also think it is important that educators go beyond just sharing content with their students, but also teach crucial critical thinking skills as well as empathy in their classes. For example, I share with my students how I experience antisemitism online as a way to personalize what might be an abstract concept to them.

Kids need to learn these skills more than ever in order to armor themselves against the hate speech and algorithms they get served online. School is where they should be gaining these crucial skills. That is why we need to not give up as more and more Republicans in states across the country seek to put a chill on teaching subjects and topics that might be “uncomfortable” for some kids.

We Can’t Back Down Now

When we don’t teach the truth and whitewash the past, we create an unsafe and undemocratic society for the future.

Most of the teachers I know won’t back down, but they need your support. Join your local school board or at least attend the meetings. When you hear someone making an inaccurate, ignorant, or hateful comment, speak up and push back on what they are saying.