Teaching in the Age of Trump
Five tenets for navigating alternative facts and ad hominem attacks in the classroom
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Full disclosure: I’m not a Trump fan. I woke up on Wednesday, November 9, 2016 with a sense of dread and foreboding. I wondered how I was going to get up, go to school, and be a responsible high school English teacher in this brave new world of Trump.
Like many, I figured I would ride it out. My previous job, at a very conservative school, taught me to keep my head down when President Obama was elected and both colleagues and school families responded as if it were the end times. It was my turn now, I reasoned. Sure, Trump had admitted to groping women, he’d mocked a disabled journalist, done myriad things I found repugnant, but there were checks and balances. How bad could it be?
Well, I’ve now taught one school year that spanned the election and inauguration, and I’ve taught one school year under the Trump presidency. In my perspective, it’s been so much worse than I could have ever imagined — but I have a job to do. It’s a job that I take seriously, and I’ve tried my best to be a responsible educator in the age of Trump. As I prepare for the 2018–2019 school, I wanted to share the five tenets I now cling to.
1. Kids need to learn how to be more responsible and canny media consumers
Alternative facts and fake news have become the modern version of “nuh-uh.” If you don’t like what I’m saying, call it fake news. If you can’t refute my assertion with objective facts, do it with alternative facts.
Kids (and adults) read things on social media and take them at face value. We must teach our students how to conduct responsible, ethical means of inquiry. We must coax them out of the echo chambers and help them learn how to discern what is real and what is truly “fake news.” Several infographics have circulated that show the spectrum on which news organizations can fall, showing bias to the left and right, to varying degrees. The most popular, by a lawyer named Vanessa Otero, can be seen below. Although this and other charts have been the subject of debate about the placement of particular news outlets on the spectrum, it can be an interesting starting point for a…
