Responses:
The teenagers who responded to my post agree. So much so that it makes me think the issue is worse than I thought. For example, I heard that when teenagers have controversial conversations online they are almost always discussing with people that they don't talk to in person. And these online interactions don't drive them to meet and talk face-to-face. Sometimes the next day they'll connect through intermediaries or through the rumor mill, but not to clarify or further discuss, face-to-face, what was typed.
I heard a unique story from a student that exemplifies the problem. She told me she knew of two friends who sat together while they engaged in a political conversation online; one student researched information, and the other tweeted their opinions bolstered by the researched information. Clearly these students were suffering from confirmation bias, carefully cherrypicking facts to "win" an argument. This emulates the national conversations we're seeing online. Unfortunately, both in our schools and nationally, conversations have become zero-sum games in which one party wins and one loses.
Solutions:
First, as I mentioned last week, this country needs to have more political conversations face-to-face. Second, we need to dispel the notion that there's always a winner and a loser in political conversations. Finally, as teachers, we need to create spaces and establish relationships where all students, whatever their politics, feel comfortable expressing their opinions in our classrooms.
Before I try to prove the thesis above, I'd like to admit that I'm no expert on this. I could spend the whole school year working with colleagues and going to conferences to help me lead better political conversations in the classroom, and I still wouldn't be an expert, especially in the current political climate. This is a tough issue, but it's one we need to address.
That said, I feel strongly that the first--and perhaps most important--solution is to flush students out of their online spaces and force them to have political conversations face-to-face. There's power in body language and tone. As I mentioned last week, these conversations promote empathy and understanding. And when these conversations happen in groups, even those who aren't speaking affect the content of the conversation through their mere presence and their physical reactions. Online, the loudest and often most extreme voices dominate conversation and push out those who hold opinions in the middle. But in a group conversation, participants can physically see reactions from those in the middle, even if they aren't speaking. And that matters.
This past week, I tried to put that into practice by hosting a student forum on a political controversy at my school related to what symbols could and could not be displayed in our senior lounge. This issue closely mirrored the problems I detailed in my post last week where students had already interacted in small groups of like-minded individuals but had never talked in person with those who disagree. Before the forum, three different students independently expressed to me that they thought the forum would get out of control or "rowdy." I patiently explained to them that I knew for a fact that it would not because I know the power of face-to-face conversation. They were right about the fact that lots of students with opinions showed up, but I was right that it did not get rowdy or even loud. It was civil.
Students adhered to my discussion guidelines, chose their words carefully, listened to each other, and treated each other with respect. The extreme position didn't monopolize the conversation. Because we sat in a big circle, everyone had an impact on the direction and outcome of the conversation, whether they spoke or not. And what was valued and respected in the forum was exactly what we teach daily: things like using evidence to support opinions, disagreeing civilly, asking for clarification, sharing the speaking time, and not raising voices. In the end, a number of students asked me to host more student forums; not only is it good for us as teachers, but it's good for the students, and they desire it. This experience proved to me that face-to-face conversations with adults present is indeed the best model to cover controversial issues.
One best practice that was integral to the success of the forum and to political conversations in general is establishing ground rules, the most important of which is that discussion is not a zero-sum game. Discussion is collaboration, not competition. We do it to better understand each other, not to defeat each other. Unfortunately, cable news (and social media) aren't helping us with this message. Nevertheless, a small reminder from a teacher goes a long way because it sets parameters and expectations for participants to work together for deeper understanding rather than to clash the way cable news guests do. I also push students to use "yes, and" statements, to validate or at least acknowledge someone's point before disagreeing, and to ask questions. These rules help create an atmosphere of empathy where people feel like they can be heard and understood.
Finally, it's imperative that everyone feel comfortable expressing their opinion. While this sounds easy, it's definitely the hardest solution in this post. Often classrooms are skewed politically, and every teacher--whether they admit it or not--has their own political biases that can be hard to manage. Again, with face-to-face conversations and the proper rules, the political makeup of the class shouldn't dictate the outcomes because everyone will be heard and understood.
In this forum, a group of conservative students waited until the forum was over to meet with each other to express opinions that they wouldn't share with the whole group. It echoed the problems we're having with online conversations, where students only want to talk to like-minded individuals. When this occurred, I immediately joined the group and asked why they wouldn't speak up in the forum. Long story short, they were afraid people would disagree. I honestly don't have an easy solution to this. I trust students would agree that we created a safe place for students to speak and disagree civilly. Regardless, we need to identify and support the groups that hold different opinions so that we can hear them in the public forum. This requires all of our teachers to seek out and engage in conversations that they might otherwise avoid.
Again, I'm no expert, but I am willing to work at this and I hope this post has convinced others to do the same. This past summer, I taught a class called Mass Media where political conversations naturally arose from our critique of the current media landscape. Trust me, they weren't all smooth. Nevertheless, to this day, the students continue exchanging messages and have asked me several times to host a Google Hangout so we could continue having political conversations together. This past week on our Google Hangout, after we discussed kneeling during the national anthem and solutions to gun violence, I asked them if any of their current high school teachers host similar conversations in their classroom. Not one of the six students said yes.
We need to empower a new generation of informed citizens who know how to articulate their opinions, how to listen, and how to empathize. That starts in our schools.
