Classroom Corner
October 7, 2024
On one hand, we encourage students to be engaged citizens and the importance of exercising their right to vote. As early as kindergarten, the social studies standards place an emphasis on a citizen's roles and responsibilities. We want to foster critical thinking and a global perspective - both are components of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. At the same time, we have to avoid encouraging them to vote in a particular way, not promote a particular candidate or party, and withhold sharing our own personal views.
Some of your students are old enough to have begun to form their own opinions and views. For others, your students merely parrot and proclaim the views they hear from friends and family. But all of it has the potential to upend your classroom community, especially on November 6th, if you don't carefully plan ahead how you're going to handle contentious comments or angry students.
First, if you haven't already, please read Board Policy GBI Staff Participation in Political Activities so you don't find yourself on the wrong side of what's allowable or not.
Second, if you don't already have established behaviors of civil discourse in your classroom when discussing any charged topic - develop some guiding norms with your students that they agree to uphold. Here are some examples (Kercher, 2020):
- Listen respectfully and actively
- Use facts to support positions
- Challenge ideas, not individuals
- Commit to learning, not winning
- Define terms toward common understanding
- Stay relevant to academic standards, lesson objectives, and the overall curriculum
Third, prepare for the day after elections. I've culled some helpful tips from a variety of online resources designed for classrooms of all ages and found these to be of particular benefit:
- Be aware of your own response and emotions; if they're running high, it will be hard for you to maintain the proper boundaries
- Make sure learning goals and objectives for lessons remain front and center. Be in the practice of redirecting any wayward comments or discussions, not just political ones, to keep students focused on the purpose of the lesson. The more routine this is for students now, the easier it will be to stay on track later.
- Foster a strong sense of classroom connection and community. That goes a long way toward building community and dispelling divisiveness.
- For older students, "think about spending some time breaking down the essence of respect with students. What is it? Who gets it and why give it? Find ways to encourage students to pay respect to the democratic process and the office of the presidency itself, regardless of who occupies the executive seat. Emphasize that using a critical lens and holding our elected officials accountable is not the same as being disrespectful or uncivil" (Mascareñaz, 2016).
- Finally, "take the opportunity to talk with your students about what happens when you try really hard for something—and you don’t get it. This could be in sports, academics, personal relationships or something else. Remind them that we all lose and confront failure, but it’s how we respond in those moments with grace and then move forward that matters" (Mascareñaz, 2016).
Your administrators have also been tasked with thinking through their response plans to flashpoints that may arise, big or small. At the end of the day, in times of high emotions and outside turmoil, we all crave a sense of peace and normalcy. Thank you for setting up your classroom up in a way that provides that for students - on November 6th and every day.
Collaboration in Serving ML Students
Today’s schools are more diverse, culturally and linguistically, than ever before—and multilingualism is the new norm. In 21st century classrooms, English proficiency cannot be seen as a prerequisite to meaningful participation in the core curriculum; instead, language must be viewed as something that is developed in the process of learning, when students are supported and have access to the richest curriculum our schools have to offer. Therefore, all teachers need to share responsibility for both engaging all learners in the core curriculum and developing essential language skills.
Greater integration and collaboration challenges teachers to view multilingual learners along a developmental continuum of academic English. This evolution represents a shift away from a 20th century paradigm of viewing multilingual learners as a small, separate group of students who are the responsibility of the ML specialists. In other words, multilingual learners were considered a problem for the specialist teacher to “fix” so they could return to the mainstream to learn the core curriculum with other students. In the 21st century paradigm, all teachers share responsibility for all students. From this perspective, multilingual learners are viewed along a continuum on which all students are developing academic English proficiency.
To dive deeper into this look at collaboration, check out these resources:
Seesaw Resources
Early Childhood teachers: Whether you've used Seesaw for years or for months, here are some resources to help you navigate new features and create learning experiences for your students:
Mary Kennedy, Riverbank Elementary
Mary Kennedy is a special education teacher who doesn't let her students additional needs become an excuse. She creates an environment of learning and teamwork as she uses her curriculum in very unique ways. Additionally, she has been collaborating with staff to make sure her students are included and are held to high expectations by all staff members. Her students have most recently been featured for their work learning the drums in music class.
Dr. Charles Vaughan, Brookland-Cayce High School
Dr. Charles Vaughan, social studies teacher, was recently presented with the inaugural Charles F. Vaughan Leadership award, named in his honor, by the South Carolina Council for the Social Studies at their 2024 annual conference at Winthrop. Dr. Vaughan has filled leadership roles on the boards of both the National Council for the Social Studies and the National Social Studies Leaders Association.
