Teaching history, easing anxiety: How some schools are addressing the Capitol riot
After her initial shock upon learning that a violent mob had stormed the U.S. Capitol last week, New Trier High School teacher Michael Christensen’s next thought was: How could she help her students process the mayhem while also easing their fears and anxiety?
“It was very hard to watch, but I’m always an educator first, so I had to get past my own emotions, because I knew when I walked into the classroom, the kids would be anxious and upset,” said Christensen, a U.S. history teacher and social studies department chairwoman at the Winnetka, Illinois, high school.
“As much as I can allay their fears and concerns, that’s the first piece,” she said. “But when we can then make historical connections, that’s the frosting on the cake.”
Christensen is among the Chicago-area educators who say the disturbing and deadly events in Washington on Jan. 6 have provided teachable moments for students in their classrooms, which in the COVID-19 era, are both in person and online.
With pandemic-related hardships already putting educators on high alert in addressing their students’ social and emotional wellness needs, many school districts promptly reached out to parents offering support in helping their children deal with last week’s civil unrest at the Capitol, as well as potential disruptions to next week’s inauguration.
Yet the stunning turn of events has also sparked vibrant classroom discussions, as students discover that historical figures like the 17th president of the United States, Andrew Johnson — who, like Trump, declined to attend the inauguration of his successor — has recently trended on social media with his very own Twitter hashtag.
Cary Waxler, a longtime social studies teacher at Barrington High School, said that when events unfolded at the Capitol, “I immediately started getting emails from my former students, telling me how good it felt that they were able to put the events at the Capitol in an historical context because of things we talked about when they were in my U.S. history class.
“Some of them even remembered the geography of the Capitol, and they knew that the House and the Senate were on different sides of the building,” Waxler said.
Still, back in the virtual classroom with his current crop of high school students, Waxler said he relied on trauma-informed instruction, the cornerstone of which is first building strong and trusting relationships, and then moving on to examining and discussing the volatile political events in a safe and respectful manner.
Waxler said with students in his classroom often overwhelmed by the flood of information about current events popping up on their social media feeds, he urges them to hone their literacy skills by evaluating and analyzing the merits of their news sources, with the goal of achieving “informed empowerment.”
Above all, Waxler is hopeful that the disturbing images students are witnessing on their screens will lead them to become engaged citizens and advocates of the principles set forth in the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, in particular, seeking to “to form a more perfect Union.”
“It’s so rare that students can be eyewitnesses to historical events, so we do plan to watch Joe Biden’s inauguration if the timing matches up, just like we did with the Trump inauguration four years ago,” Waxler said.
As a former U.S. Senate intern who worked as a tour guide for visitors to the Capitol in 1997, Tom Smith said it was heartbreaking to see a mob storming the sanctified confines of a building he recalled as “a magical place.”
But beyond his dismay, Smith, now a history teacher and division head at Hersey High School in Arlington Heights, said he was immediately taken by the fact that his U.S. history class is studying the Reconstruction era, and the recent events, “provided multiple opportunities for my students to make connections.”
“There is a degree of uncertainty and even fear that students are experiencing right now, and they’re asking, ‘Why did this happen?’” Smith said. “... But U.S. history shows us that our democracy has been challenged tremendously over the years, and that we’ve endured these stress tests before, and continue to endure.”
He said he also tried to reassure his students “by reminding them that, ultimately, the election results were certified, and Congress resumed.”
Of course, the extent to which teachers can explain and discuss the recent unrest at the U.S. Capitol is dependent upon the ages of their students, said Meegan Filosa, a longtime U.S. history teacher at Plum Grove Junior High in Rolling Meadows.
“My students are 13 and 14, so they see what’s happening in the news, but they’re also still 13 and 14, so it’s a balancing act,” Filosa said.
Calming any worries some of her students might have felt about the unrest was tricky, Filosa said, as only a handful of the eighth graders were actually in her classroom, with most of the youngsters receiving remote instruction from their homes.
“You don’t get to see a lot of their faces or hear them, because some students turn their cameras off and mute their mics,” Filosa said. “For sure, they’re all aware of what’s happening, but some students are very in tune, and others are not, which is in direct correlation to if their parents pay a lot of attention to the news and current events.”
While high school teachers can lead students in robust discussions that hone critical thinking skills, Filosa said with junior high school-aged kids, she keeps her lessons understandable and on track by “sticking to the facts.”
“In seventh grade, we teach the U.S. Constitution, so my students were able to remember learning about the Electoral College, and I pointed out how important it was that after the violence, Congress went right back to work, and certified the vote.
“I think even the students who seemed disturbed by what they had seen were really more curious as to how this had happened,” Filosa said. “But I told them, there are moments in our history where we didn’t have an answer, and right now, this is one of them.”
