I’m who I am. I like to push buttons in the classroom and wake students from their slumbers. Sometimes, I show them stuff from the news and use words and phrases and images right out of that same news feed. Why hide this?
Students have been interested in Trump and his cult of personality. Why shouldn’t they be interested? I have girls, gays, kids who weren’t born in this country. They’re scared, because they heard a lot of threats in the last year. And, they now know that even if those threats from Trump were just something to get him elected, and that he’s not really THAT bad, they still live in a country that showed their thoughts through their many votes.
This is not political–I’m just writing that I have students (past and present) who are now afraid to be who they are. What do I tell them?
But the beauty of education is that we are allowed to question everything. It’s always a great time when that happens. I always love watching Gillian Hart teach while I’m on my conference period. It’s APN, the class where she teaches Government and those same kids then come to my English class for their next period. She doesn’t push as many buttons as I do, but she tells students the truth, offers them facts, and can be honest, ridiculous, and understanding all at the same time. I try to argue with her, play devil’s advocate, be a stereotype, but she always has the facts and smarts to show students that this type of verbal sparring over issues is something we want from them.
In APN, we question. Maybe not EVERYthing, but students get more than one point of view. Today, she was reviewing the propositions that passed/didn’t pass in California. Students asked questions, were happy and appalled at certain facts, and discussed and followed up and offered individual opinions.
Listening to her gives them a female point of view. Kids thought Prop 64 was great because weed got legalized and blah blah blah, but she gave them the fine print, that Big Pharma will now be getting its large hands in on the deal. Prop 57, which people thought was a good idea because it let those non-violent criminals out of jail early, didn’t sit so well with students once she informed them of what our state of California now deems NOT a violent crime. You can look it up, but being able to sodomize a person who has passed out seems pretty violent to me. There are MANY other examples of similar “non-violent” acts.
The beauty of education lets students question that. But it also means you sometimes have to make people uncomfortable (trigger!) and present to them what they may not want to hear. It’s the facts, it’s the world around them–it’s education. Sometimes the facts are better coming out of Gillian Hart’s mouth, but sometimes students need to hear it from me, too.
I mention Huxley too much, but he worried that education would be reduced to facts generated by others, leaving little room for opinion and voice. Don’t worry, Aldous–Hart and I got you covered.