History and social science teachers in Monterey County are addressing with their students the historic events of Jan. 6, when a mob incited by President Donald Trump’s claims that the presidential election was stolen from him stormed the U.S. Capitol and tried to stop the certification of the electoral votes to ratify the election of Joe Biden as the 46th president.
Carla Viviana González, a teacher from Alisal High School and newly elected member of the Salinas City Council, says it isn’t easy to teach social sciences during the current political climate. “It’s very difficult to teach about democracy or things that are wrong – and then, you see the president doing what you already said was wrong.”
Juan Cisneros teaches ethnic studies to freshmen at Marina High School, where he conducted a class exercise and asked students to express their feelings and thoughts about the act of sedition. “We did see a pattern in the responses,” Cisneros says, adding that many students expressed confusion. “A lot of students didn’t know why people broke into the Capitol.”
Some of the questions he asked students were how the event made them feel and if they were surprised about it. Some students said they didn’t know what happened while others expressed concerns about how differently law enforcement acted on Jan. 6 compared to at various Black Lives Matter protests. “They did have concerns about why the treatment of protesters was a lot different,” Cisneros says.
Ana Barrera teaches ethnic studies at Everett Alvarez High School and during the first three weeks of the semester, she plans to address equality, civil rights and democracy. “I’m going to be using the present times that we are living in, to make connections,” Barrera says. She wants her students to learn and understand what the Constitution is.
Barrera presented a news clip in Spanish (because most of her students are transitioning to English from Spanish or indigenous languages) in which Biden says the events at the Capitol were an insurrection rather than a protest. Students also read an article from the website Black & Smart titled “But what will we tell the children?” It analyzes Jan. 6 from the BLM perspective and compares images of law enforcement in full riot gear outside of Congress during a BLM protest and the mob climbing the wall at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
While comparing the images, students observed systemic racism in America.
González says some former students reached out to her and were in shock when they learned about the insurrection. “It’s our responsibility to demonstrate what being a civically engaged resident and community member is,” González says. Of keeping students informed: “This is how we invest in our communities, by investing in our use of critical thinking and preparation for the real world.”
Cisneros plans to revisit this topic in the future since the consequences are still unfolding. He will wait until his students learn about different systems of government and power.
“I just want kids to really try to process what happened because this is super historical,” Cisneros says. “It’s something that’s going to be in our history textbooks one day.”
(1) comment
Will they also explain the pre-election violence that occurred in many US cities that attacked business, individuals and Federal properties? Doubtful, maybe before you through all peaceful protesters in with the radicals, do a little reporting. It appears that these individuals had this planned and low and behold, coordinated their efforts on twitter, facebook and youtube. Check out CNN reporting on this. It's odd how quickly the "progressive" press is willing to cast judgement on a few from the right, yet never do that to the radicals on the left. The press is one of the major reasons for the divide, you've stopped reporting facts, and are propogandists. You want to start the healing? Start with eliminating and putting people into groups or classes. Stop telling everyone how to live or if they disagree with you, they must be uneducated, racists homophobs, etc...Start with peaceful and open dialog and stop suppressing speech-i.e. google, twitter, facebook-banning or censoring all those opposite their political beliefs. The frustration and protest car stemming from the lack of speech which you don't agree with. Freedom of speech is the one thing that actually keeps the peace, people are allow to voice their frustrations, anger, etc.. So what if you don't agree with it or it hurts your feelings. You don't think what you say or write about those that are opposite your political and social spectrum don't like being shut down? Why are you afraid of opposing opinion? Maybe the reason is that if people are given an opposing view, they just might not believe what the schools, press and universities have been shoving down peoples throats all those years. Sad, truly sad.
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