{"id":10385,"date":"2016-07-05T00:48:03","date_gmt":"2016-07-05T05:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/?p=10385"},"modified":"2016-07-05T00:51:27","modified_gmt":"2016-07-05T05:51:27","slug":"powerful-coverage-of-a-study-on-how-students-and-teachers-are-being-affected-by-the-2016-election-hate-rhetoric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/powerful-coverage-of-a-study-on-how-students-and-teachers-are-being-affected-by-the-2016-election-hate-rhetoric\/","title":{"rendered":"Powerful coverage of a study on how students and teachers are being affected by the 2016 election hate rhetoric"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Trump<\/a>
Source: imgflip.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>The Southern Poverty Law Center reports<\/a> on the results of a casual survey administered online by Teaching Tolerance<\/a> about the current presidential election. About 2000 teachers responded and submitted 5000 comments. <\/p>\n

Students who identify with Trump’s hate rhetoric are using it to justify bullying behaviour, persecution of certain students and threats … while immigrant and ethnic minority students across the country are voicing fear, expressing thoughts of suicide and having meltdowns in class.<\/p>\n

Some of the stories are heartbreaking. In Tennessee, a kindergarten teacher says a Latino child\u2014told by classmates that he will be deported and trapped behind a wall\u2014asks every day, \u201cIs the wall here yet?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some teachers have felt obliged to abandon their customary neutrality on political issues in the classroom and take a stand, despite awareness that doing so may put their jobs in jeapordy. <\/p>\n

A Renton, Washington, high school teacher said, \u201cFor the first time in my career, I state bluntly what is appropriate conduct for a candidate for this country\u2019s highest office.\u201d She spelled it out for students: \u201cIf it can get you suspended from high school, you shouldn\u2019t be espousing it as a candidate.\u201d Another Washington teacher wrote, \u201cThis is probably the first time I haven\u2019t been unbiased about it. My students need to know that some of what they are witnessing is not okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

In schools where student partisanship leans heavily to one side, educators find themselves needing to speak up for students whose political values are in the minority. \u201cThe rhetoric has set up a school community that is hostile to conservatives and the Republican Party,\u201d a Michigan high school teacher said. \u201cIt makes it difficult if not impossible to not take sides in my classroom because I can\u2019t be silent in the face of this kind of rhetoric, lest I lose my students\u2019 respect or trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one can fault an educator who stands up for values like respect, dignity and honesty\u2014values that have long been central to character education and anti-bullying programs. But this year has pushed some educators to go further and take risks. \u201cI have thrown caution into the wind and have spoken out against certain candidates which I have NEVER done,\u201d wrote a Michigan high school teacher, \u201cbut I feel it\u2019s my duty to speak out against ignorance!\u201d<\/p>\n

These are high-stakes decisions. Several wrote about parents registering complaints when they raised issues of values, fact-checking and critical thinking. But, as one Indianapolis high school teacher put it, \u201cI am a point where I\u2019m going to take a stand even if it costs me my position.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Washington state, one high school teacher admitted, \u201cI am teaching off the hook before anyone \u2018catches\u2019 me and puts me in a Common Core box; we are reading Howard Zinn, Anne Frank, Haig Bosmajian, Jane Yolen, Ayn Rand, George Orwell and survivors\u2019 testimonies from the Holocaust and the genocides around the world. \u2026 I am making it as real and as connected to my students as I can. I feel like I am teaching for our lives.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The SPLC article focuses on “The Trump Effect” and doesn’t speak to the impact on students of learning that Hillary Clinton called young people of color “superpredators” in a speech. But there is concern sufficient for youth #BlackLivesMatter activist Ashley Williams to have donated $500 to get into a Clinton fundraiser in South Carolina and confront Hillary with a sign reading \u201cI\u2019m not a Superpredator, Hillary!\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s also growing discussion about how Hillary and Bill Clinton worked together to formulate and enact the policies and activities which led to an amazing number of black and brown people, and about 1% of the overall US population<\/a>, being imprisoned in America today. <\/p>\n

Hat tip to Yvette Lucas<\/a> for sharing the article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports on the results of a casual survey administered online by Teaching Tolerance about the current presidential election. About 2000 teachers responded and submitted 5000 comments. Students who identify with Trump’s hate rhetoric are using it to justify bullying behaviour, persecution of certain students and threats … while immigrant and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Powerful coverage of a study on how students and teachers are being affected by the 2016 election hate rhetoric”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[979,1,1082,492,563,160,1192],"tags":[1405,1530,100,67,1319,2027],"class_list":["post-10385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-all","category-dei","category-education","category-justice","category-news-truths","category-politics-2","tag-bully","tag-hate","tag-hillary","tag-immigrant","tag-school","tag-teachers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10385"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10395,"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10385\/revisions\/10395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewei.com\/kimi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}