I often think about how my students would learn from President Trump if I still taught middle school. How would I teach American government when every move felt so fraught with danger? What would I do?
Id teach civics. Id take the firehose of news, spray it around the room, and wed all soak ourselves in civics. President Trump would criticize a judge, and wed talk about the federal court system – what an appeal is, and what judicial review is, and what the Supreme Court does. This would lead us to a discussion of checks and balances. My students would pepper me with questions, some of which I could answer directly (“Wait, so could Trump fire the judge?”) and some of which I could not; those would be the best ones. “Is the president more powerful than the other branches? What would happen if the president decided not to do what a judge told him? Why is lunch so short?”
Mr. Trump would hint at a third term, and a student would say he cant do that. “How do you know?” I would ask, and wed all dig into our little pocket constitutions. The nature of executive orders would puzzle kids, but those orders would help us see that the president runs the executive branch of government and can dictate the direction of its work. And because everyone would then get confused about what a law is, as opposed to an executive order, wed be all set up to learn what Congress does.
I would use President Trump to teach media literacy. Students would bring in news headlines, and week by week, wed paper over a bulletin board, analyzing the headlines language and inferring the point of view of the editor or author. “This one loves Trump!” a student would say. And that would make us check the text of the article to see whether a close reading supported that claim. This focus on news would drive us back to the First Amendment. Id shout, “You cant HANDLE the press!” and not a single kid would know I was misquoting an old movie. Theyd roll their eyes at me.
Id also use President Trump to teach habits. Before we puzzled over executive orders or freedom of the press, we would make rules for ourselves: that throughout the year, we would strive to ask questions rather than refute what others said, that when possible we would turn our bodies toward speakers and reflect back what we had heard in order to validate and clarify. Wed learn to identify and regulate emotions when classmates said things that set us off. We would return to these – and other – expectations throughout our discussions, collaboratively nurturing a culture of curiosity, even about those with whom we disagree. If elected officials – including President Trump – publicly disregarded the norms we had agreed to follow in our learning community, the contrast would sharpen our focus.
I would be questioned along the way. A parent would email, saying that the widespread condemnation of President Trump among my students was marginalizing her conservative son. On the very same day, another parent would ask how a class devoted to civic education could platform an authoritarian figure like Mr. Trump. If I were feeling overwhelmed and cornered, I would reply hastily and defensively; I would not hear from either parent again. If I took a deep breath, I might invite each parent to join me for a more thorough discussion. I would either end the conversation before it began, or I would practice the very behaviors I was hoping to teach my students.
At the end of the year, another parent would thank me and say, “I wish I had learned all this when I was in seventh grade!” And I would think: Its not too late! Its not too late for you to get curious about the freedom of the press, the function of executive orders, the balance of powers, and the biases of media sources. Its never too late to dig deeply, to learn joyfully, and to be curious about those with whom you disagree. A seventh grader can do it. So can you.
Kent Lenci is a member of the board of advisers for the Prohuman Foundation. He taught middle school social studies for 20 years. He is the founder of Middle Ground School Solutions, which helps today’s students ease tomorrow’s political polarization, and he is the author of “Learning to Depolarize: Helping Students and Teachers Reach Across Lines of Disagreement.”
