Teachers help students make sense of events in capitol

A teacher in Alabama presented photographs of the insurrection at the U. S. Capitol without commentary and asked students to write poems in reflection. A Minnesota instructor fielded comparisons to the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing. And a civics educator in Connecticut urged her rattled students to work toward making the country better.

Social studies teachers nationwide set aside lesson plans this week to help young people make sense of the scenes of the violent siege in Washington by supporters of President Donald Trump.

Approaches varied, with some teachers deliberately holding off on historical comparisons with the events so fresh. Many trod cautiously in light of varied political viewpoints in their classrooms and communities.

But educators universally described efforts to hear out students’ fears and concerns and instill a sense of history and even hopefulness in a school year shaped by the nation’s reckoning over racial injustice, the coronavirus pandemic and the constraints of distance learning.

“In almost every single one of my classes, the students brought it up before I even could,” said Karley Reising, a social studies teacher at Robert E. Fitch High School in Groton, Connecticut. “And especially my seniors were really struggling with what this meant about the future of our country in a way that was pretty heartbreaking.”

She and others said they tried to focus on the importance of engagement and to push back against the creeping sense that violence is the inevitable end to political division.