![]() In the past, Cuenca’s students used to ask questions about career progression and mentoring. It’s preparation for a sort of reverse job interview-an opportunity to practice asking school principals the kind of questions that illuminate the culture and environment in different workplaces. That’s another lesson he tries to impart to his students.Įvery year, as a class activity, he asks a school administrator to visit his class of future teachers. Teachers shouldn’t have to feel like they’re navigating this landscape without support, said Cuenca. “It’s not job to resolve legal contradictions,” Clark said. And they don’t want that to happen to them.”įor now, his advice is to advocate for guidance from the state department of public instruction. “They hear stories about people threatening teachers they hear stories about teachers getting disciplined. “I wish I could tell them, ‘This is how you thread that needle,’ but unfortunately the guidance isn’t there yet,” Clark said. Clark’s students want to know: How can they teach about Jim Crow, without explaining that it was a part of the American legal system explicitly designed to facilitate racial inequality? And those standards documents reference the Jim Crow Laws-state and local legislation passed after the Civil War that legalized and enforced racial segregation. Their dominant reactions are confusion and anxiety, he said-in part, because the law itself seems contradictory.īut the law also requires that instruction be aligned with the state’s content standards. He has his students read North Dakota’s law and then facilitates a conversation about what it means for their work. He tries to prepare social studies teachers to navigate that murky space. Still, even when teachers are working inside the letter of the law, there might still be gray areas, said Chris Clark, an assistant professor of teaching and leadership at the University of North Dakota. Teachers have the autonomy to decide that the KKK’s views aren’t ones they will validate in the classroom, he said. With his students, he uses the extreme example of the Ku Klux Klan during the Jim Crow era. It doesn’t have to mean giving equal weight, or equal framing, to both sides of every issue. Now, he said, they’re concerned about how they approach almost every issue in the standards: Are they showing multiple perspectives, as some states’ legislation requires?Ĭuenca tries to impress upon his students that the mandate to incorporate “multiple perspectives” leaves room for some teacher decisionmaking. His students used to feel they had to avoid “those big third rail issues in society,” Cuenca said-like gun control, for example. Politics and “culture wars” have always had a hand in shaping what subjects teachers feel they can and can’t address in the classroom, said Alexander Cuenca, an associate professor of social studies education at Indiana University Bloomington.īut the list of topics Cuenca’s preservice teachers worry about has grown recently, he said. Understanding the political reality in schools that self-censorship in order to maintain a nonpartisan reputation can’t be justified,” Henig said. ![]() ![]() “What we’re seeing on the part of many in the education world is that the imminent culture wars threats in some of these states are so existential. Pushing back against this narrative could make organizations like the NCSS visible targets in a larger national debate, Henig said.īut the organization isn’t alone in making this political calculation, he added. Ron DeSantis, have made claims that schools are indoctrinating children as a key part of their platforms. Politicians with national ambitions, like Florida Gov. “It’s objectively true that it’s harder to walk the line of nonpartisanship today than it was 10 or 15 years ago,” said Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, about this shift. (All of the state legislation restricting classroom conversation topics has been introduced by Republicans.) That’s changed in recent years, she said, as one political party has started introducing legislation that the NCSS believes is counter to its mission. The organization is nonpartisan, and historically, its board has avoided taking positions that could be perceived to have a political bent, said Shannon Pugh, the NCSS president. The group is working on talking points for teachers to use to respond to parents or advocate at school board meetings, and it has updated its advocacy toolkit for members to include resources on state and local politics.įor NCSS, these steps represent a shift in strategy. It’s a change that the National Council for the Social Studies, the country’s largest professional association for history and civics teachers, has made as well. Click here for more information on the measures and variations from state to state. ![]()
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