I’m curating a unit on poetry, protest, and persuasion, and here are some of the resources I’m stitching together:
This is a Google Site I’ve been quilting together and updating off and on:
https://sites.google.com/view/mrslovespoetrypage/homeStill have more to do, and will take suggestions.
The post where I call out racist teachers and want to scream.
I am not worthy or qualified to write this post. There are far more skilled journalists and education journalists, social justice writers and resources. But I do have something to say, if only for my own little corner of my mind and heart.
To the white teachers who 1. Voted for Trump 2. Continue to support white supremacy 3. Do zero self-reflection or move against their husbands (because it’s often white women who uphold the patriarchal structures) and 4. Maintain neutrality in these times I say you are a horrible excuse for a human and teacher.
Let me guess. You’ve read Night by Elie Weisel or The Diary of Anne Frank, you have a poster of a whitewashed Martin Luther King, Jr. or have shown and/or read Freedom Writers with Zlata Filipovic and Erin Gruwell. You discussed All the Light We Cannot See by Anothy Doerr in your bookclubs and felt very literary and aware. Your favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and you wished you were Scout when you were little. And yet: you still voted for Trump. Or your husband did. Maybe you cherry-picked his words until he hit just the right chord. You may have watched him on The Apprentice and been entertained by his brash, and seemingly “tell it like it is” style while low-grade celebrities dashed around for his favor. What you may not have realized at the time is you were engaging in a culture war against your very students.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigrants-and-crime/
–Real estate mogul Donald Trump, presidential announcement speech, June 16, 2015
“I can never apologize for the truth. I don’t mind apologizing for things. But I can’t apologize for the truth. I said tremendous crime is coming across. Everybody knows that’s true. And it’s happening all the time. So, why, when I mention, all of a sudden I’m a racist. I’m not a racist. I don’t have a racist bone in my body.”
–Trump, interview on Fox News’ “Media Buzz,” July 5, 2015
“What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.”
You don’t think Brett Kavanaugh is that bad of a guy, because you have a son and sure would hate if he was falsely accused of rape and sexual abuse. You don’t know why the liberals want Trump impeached, and what’s the big deal that he has colluded with foreign agents, or profits and completely disregards the Emoluments Clause? You also probably conveniently forget that the Founding Fathers put those protections in place for exactly these moments, owned slaves, and were all for separation of church and state. In other words: paradoxes. Lots of paradoxes.
And after a thread on another social media group, where a teacher asked humbly and respectfully how to approach conversations about white privilege (her students didn’t
believe it existed versus how does it manifest itself) some of the responses and racists underpinnings left me in despair.
My view of it? Make their own choices? Teachers: first, get a grip on what ‘false equivalency’ is. Yes, all issues have two sides, and if you choose the side of the oppressor, giving them equal status, you are the oppressor, too. Does that taste bitter? Do you reject that? If you’re uncomfortable or angry you may need to rethink your stance. You’re wrong.
Yes, this teacher misspelled ‘border.’ But okay. This was in response to my statement about US Citizens are being detained. This surprised this woman. She had never heard of this. But no shock since she thinks they ‘are trying to sneak in illegally.” She doesn’t seem to have heard of asylum laws. But let’s think about that for a bit: she thought this ‘one citizen’ was ‘playing both sides’ (whatever the @!*! that means) and not realizing even ONE means ALL. But go ahead and say your pledge, lady.
Hear me: if you bristle at being called a racist, no one cares. No. One. Cares. Your measurement of yourself in this moment is not at stake. If you are a teacher, and you’re in a classroom with humans–you have a sworn duty to work at anti-racist work for all of your students. Do not uphold the white kids’ privilege: it does everyone harm.
You have some work to do. Start with these:
https://timesevents.nytimes.com/1619NYC
https://www.facinghistory.org/
https://www.pbs.org/weta/reconstruction/
When They See Us (And this is a pivotal example of Trump’s deeply embedded racism)
Guess what? If you stop your hypocrisy (you are not allowed to read Anne Frank and feel “woke”) and start to evolve, you may lose some friends. You may alienate some family members. But you will also have your integrity, and moreover, do what’s right by the students in your care. If you can’t do that, please stop teaching.
Recently a post on social media got to me to thinking: (well, overthinking? *shrug*)
After a thread and reflection, I am trying to answer some questions:
A post from the New York Times, “In an Era of Fake News, Teaching Students to Parse Fact from Fiction” discusses the challenges of teaching context.
One can, indeed, Google context about a topic. How deep down the rabbit hole should we go?
I get the statement: it’s intended to be for Depth of Knowledge Level One Yes/No kinds of questions, Costas’ level one knowledge, bottom rung of Bloom’s. However — these days the strata of misinformation abounds, and even yes/no questions can result in horrific results. And these days, it is life and death.
I needed my help from my friend Sharon to help ME get some context for this post, and she came to the rescue:
I tried a little experiment, suggested by my husband. I Googled “What are vaccines?” and “Are vaccines good for you?” both level one questions that should result in facts or a yes/no.
Here is what I got with this first search statement:
(Note: most results are sound.)
Here is with search terms my husband tried:
Questions, even with yes or no answers, can be inherently biased. People seek the answers their cognitive dissonance and biases want. “Google” Benghazi, Alex Jones, Pizzagate, etc. Heck, look up “president handshakes.” No, never mind. Don’t.
Google does its best to filter and promote factual information with its complicated algorithms and data. But Fake News is a violent, dangerous issue. I wish we could go back a decade at least when we could, with reasonable critical thinking skills, discern fact from opinion/fiction.
Here is something Sharon and I can fix, so look for a Part II. In the meantime
So yes, don’t spend a lot of time teaching if it can be Googled. But teaching how Google works is teaching time well spent.
Oh, and I found this, and of course, can find its origins:
But don’t stop the nerd love:
https://embed.ted.com/talks/lang/en/john_green_the_nerd_s_guide_to_learning_everything_online
The five-paragraph essay is likened to learning the foundations of structure and organization critical to being able to write other organized pieces. There may be merit to this, however learning how to write something no one reads anymore may only serve to rust and crumble authenticity.
Might I offer some suggestions, or additions to the five-paragraph essay, especially for secondary students?
Consider these sites/links as mentor texts as well as powerful places to publish essays. Use examples of the essays written here and challenge students to compare their essays to these.
Some close reading/close writing ideas:
Op-Ed Pieces from NY Times, Washington Post:
In contrast, posted in Medium:
From Quora:
These sites allow for curation and dialogue. Challenge students to find pieces that bounce against one another, the claims and counter-claims of 21st-century discussions. We are not sitting around dinner tables anymore, we are sitting in a web of ideas, and sometimes we are the prey: in this day and age, it is critical to not gloss over what is fake news, but to empower our students to consider and weigh the entire issues at stake. It is a monumental task but may mean life or death. Hyperbole? Not when others are reading conspiracy theories and threatening lives. Even if this isn’t factual–consider that some do believe it, and act accordingly.
I think I would cease to function if I didn’t have my sense of humor.
Everyone thinks they have a sense of humor, but…
Humor is one of the most difficult mediums to write. One way to allow students to access their natural silliness is to introduce them to parody and satire.
Parody: intended to spoof by using humor based on an existing piece/genre
Satire: intended to criticize something or someone, often with humor, but not necessarily.
Is Monty Python Satire? (Click for a PDF)
Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, Revisionist History (did I list that one, too!?) did a show on satire. The upshot is we Americans do a pretty terrible job at satire–it’s McWeaksauce sometimes–but is still important. I wonder what it says about the nation who invented stand-up can’t do satire as well? Hmm.
https://www.middleweb.com/29971/media-literacy-kids-in-the-middle-love-parody/
How would we go about introducing students to parody and satire? They are well-versed in memes and Youtube channels that provide so many examples and are masters at consuming media/humor. But how to create content? Perhaps I would pose the question to them: what angers, frustrates, or annoys them, and how would they like to create their own parodies? It’s important to point out parodies are not mean-spirited or bullying. What rules do they think are silly or goofy (I think the beloved yellow safety vest hall pass might their first target)?
And yes, while I think this is terrible, from a jester-level sense of humor, it is kind of funny:
From a historical standpoint, how has parody and satire changed the world? And it has, no doubt. Mocking rulers, institutions, sacred cows and laws, parody and satire help us all laugh so we don’t cry. And that makes us stronger.
Examples of Satire in Candide/Seattle PI Education Site
And of course: (PG 13 language)
This is something I’m going to try on very soon. We all could use a good laugh.
But sometimes it doesn’t feel good to be the butt of a joke.
This–this is why I am not sure I can be a History/Social Studies teacher anymore, and why I should be more than ever…
Ah, Internet. So bountiful, so giving: it allows students from all over the world to communicate, to understand and empathize with all kinds of species, including their own.
But a few weeks ago I hit a hard truth: sometimes I teach students whose values, beliefs, and systemic ideas take root in the worst examples of rhetorical blunderings. (Translation: I don’t agree with them, and have to check my own biases.) While I adamantly defend a students’ Constitutional Rights and remain effectually neutral, I am not sure I have the will or the strength to fight this brand of illogic: the conspiracy theorists.
Students love to bandy about The Illuminati, and shouting “Illuminati” is their go-to punch line, a warding off of evil juju, much like my ridiculous practice of tossing salt over my left shoulder. (Yes, I do that, and knock on wood. Stop it. You don’t know what calamities I’ve prevented!) Some theories are fun, such as these literary ones. (Well, I think they’re entertaining: and I think that Poe one being Cooped has merit.)
What is the real danger in believing a conspiracy theory? Those enduring ones, from the moon landing was fake to Obama’s birth certificate linger, and then get re-branded. Consider the Ted Cruz eligibility for being President. One legal argument from Mary Brigid McManamon says fairly clearly and logically, and more important,t legally, no, he’s not. This may have been in response to Jonathan H. Adler’s piece, also in the Washington Post prior to McManamon’s piece, that yes, Ted Cruz is. The author of this article provides an update and revises some of his original nuances or misinformation, so I give him credit for that:
UPDATE: Several readers object that this post simplifies what is, in actuality, a very difficult constitutional question. The precise original public meaning of “natural born citizen” may not be as clear as my post or the Katyal-Clement article suggests. For reasons why, see this 2010 essay by Lawrence Solum.
In contrast, McManamon states:
Article I of the Constitution grants Congress the power to naturalize an alien — that is, Congress may remove an alien’s legal disabilities, such as not being allowed to vote. But Article II of the Constitution expressly adopts the legal status of the natural-born citizen and requires that a president possess that status. However we feel about allowing naturalized immigrants to reach for the stars, the Constitution must be amended before one of them can attain the office of president. Congress simply does not have the power to convert someone born outside the United States into a natural-born citizen.
But is this a conspiracy theory? No, it’s a legal clarification and debate over wording and intent in the Constitution. That’s what our justice system does.
So how do we describe the difference between conspiracy theory adoption and critical debate and speech? What is the danger in ignoring these nuances? The danger is allowing Fear to sit at the table and take all the food. Fear is my current personified monster that is at the root of all heartache. Fear is the student who thinks an author is a Nazi, and then denies herself the joy of reading his works. Fear undermines the mother whose child has Autism and in desperation wants to believe in Jenny McCarthy versus the decades of science and people of medicine. People we used to hold in high esteem and trust. Fear breaks parents’ hearts over and over again when someone doubts their loss.
But, Fear gets a punch on the snout by Buzz Aldrin:
In this article, Here’s how scientific misinformation, such as climate doubt, spread misinformation,
The researchers conclude that the diffusion of content generally takes place within clusters of users known as “echo chambers” — polarized communities that tend to consume the same types of information. For instance, a person who shares a conspiracy theory online is typically connected to a network of other users who also tend to consume and share the same types of conspiracy theories. This structure tends to keep the same ideas circulating within communities of people who already subscribe to them, a phenomenon that both reinforces the worldview within the community and makes members more resistant to information that doesn’t fit with their beliefs.
Confirmation bias holds the key:
Confirmation bias is the tendency of individuals to pay attention to or believe information that confirms the personal values and beliefs they already hold, rather than allowing their beliefs to be changed by new information.
People tend to believe in the theory that fits or is relevant to their situation of culture, race, religion, etc. Stress (and my monster Fear) team up to push us toward our lizard brains, abandon our front cortex in fight/flight mode. The problem with all of this is the “real” world is doing a dandy job of being nut-job crazy coco puff bananas. If a conspiracy theory is meant to explain, all it ends up doing is deflecting.
Just what Fear wanted all along.
So how do we truly help students, and ourselves, sort fact from fiction? Is it even possible?
My husband told me last night that the tapes of the moon landing were “lost,” and we were the last generation to witness the moon landing, and the memory is only in our minds. I had not heard about this, or even thought about it, because moon landings are in my own memory bank, clear and present. How is anyone going to believe us now?
Keep teaching. Keep learning. Keep connecting. And try to be a credible source.
