What is a School to Do? - March 2024

With the upcoming election quickly approaching later in November, school teams are beginning to scratch their heads to prepare for yet another divisive climate of conversations around topics that are personal and pertinent. 

While there is plenty of focus on the candidates themselves who will be busier talking than listening, engaged citizens have to filter through all of the noise created by an oversaturated media market trying to help sensationalize the agendas for mere entertainment. Sadly, it has shown to effectively work over the past few elections since mainstream media helps to reflect society at large, and vice versa. 

So what is a school to do? 

Create a committee (yes, another one!) to help look at how to juxtapose isolated lessons that can be dropped into history classes that explore the platforms that will be disputed this summer and fall? Run some mock debates as students research topics and ideology as opposed to Wikipedia-ing candidates’ stances? Present a primer on the electoral college to remind folks about why the number 270 matters so much but that the popular vote does not equate to the magic number itself (see what I did there?)? Create norms in certain spaces to remind folks about the importance of how we converse with one another? Schedule drop-ins for students who are really engaged and interested to share a space with others who share the same affinity?

All of these are noble initiatives and help to move the ball down field just enough to get folks into the important headspace that gets them thinking about all of the things that their community might not be ready for or have sufficient practice with. Essentially, all of the ideas above are good ones but they are short-term and responsive to the fact that perhaps the election cycle shines a spotlight on what our school communities have not spent enough time actually doing:

• Engaging in real-world topics that matter to citizens in this country and around the world
  
  
• Identifying the skills of civil dialogue that rely on multiple parties engaging in conversations that push their own thinking in order to collectively seek higher understanding
  
  
• Creating time and space for different perspectives and points of views to enter the conversation that are unattached to individuals and therefore avoiding groupthink and being canceled
  
  
• Asking questions to learn as opposed to proving one’s own point
  
  
• Building a community of thinkers who participate in discussions beyond the grade/mark while challenging their own moral compass in an effort to find their own north, which is always a moving target
  
  
• Helping the school to espouse its own core values to all of its constituents.

Easier said than done; of course. But a worthwhile venture nonetheless.

Now that is something every school can vote for and feel good about.