Keeping Kids Informed about Societal & Political Changes

This episode explores how educators and parents can teach children about societal and political issues in a respectful, safe, and critical manner. It emphasizes the importance of fostering critical thinking, civic responsibility, and community engagement from a young age.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Falling for Learning podcast. We are talking today about how to make sure that your children stay up to date on the societal and political issues. So we're gonna give you tips if you're a teacher on how to do this in a respectful way to the families. And we'll talk about how to do this as a parent, right? So. different sides of this issue, but we all have the same goal, making sure that our students are ready to be leaders as an adult, to be politically active and to be a good citizen. So stay tuned, please like and subscribe. welcome, Lauren Moseley is going to join our podcast episode today, our discussion. So Lauren, what do you think about this issue? What's coming to surface? Or should we stop for a moment and say, how are you doing? What's going on? No, let's just get down to business. Just jump in. Who cares how we're doing? No, I'm doing great. I'm doing good. But I'm thinking a lot about this political climate that we're in. And you know, I have littles. I have the little littles. Always thinking about ways to make the world more, you know, just a less scary place for them. And so, you know, we're, teach language arts and social studies. We are uh looking at the social, in social studies, we're looking at like the structure of. the politics of political entities. We're not talking a lot about what's on the left and what's on the right. We're more looking at the structure. know, there's goods and services and there's people who are in leadership roles who make sure that the nation has everything that they need. that's we we want to make it feel really safe. We're in a place where everyone is going to be safe and we have leaders that are watching out for our safety. That's the story I'm telling them. However, you know, there's the reality of I also want them to grow up to be whole citizens that are engaged on an intellectual level, that they are reading and they have, you know, just... ability to think critically, ask good questions, and have respectful discourse with other people. That's my ultimate goal. They are able to have conversations with people who might think differently in a way that's not adversarial and contentious, but in a way where you are sharing ideas and trying to stand on common ground. So that's what we're doing in Ms. Mosley's first grade class. So yeah. Yes, that's excellent. Like I love the things that you're saying about the goal of helping that we have like whole citizens that are able to interact in productive ways, right? Because that's like the bedrock of a democracy is that we are able to disagree with each other and that we are not villainizing one another when we do not see it the same way. and then we are able to meet in some common ground so that we can get certain laws passed or certain things done so that people could live in a better society. And so that is what our ultimate goal is. So if you're a teacher and you're thinking about this topic, like how to keep kids informed about what's going on in society and what's going on in the community, I would really strongly suggest that we are not imposing our particular personal biases. And we're all biased. We all have our own bias against things. So it can get you in a lot of trouble with the families that you serve if you're doing this. But also when we're thinking about a safe learning environment. Mm-hmm. If everyone in the class except for one kid feels differently than you politically and you are trumpeting a way of thinking a political party or anything like that, you are making it unsafe for the child, right? To speak up and say what they feel. Because the other kids, right? They have less power than you. you as an authority figure in the class saying this is the right way to think about this issue again could get you in trouble but also just really set it up so everyone is not safe to speak doesn't feel safe to speak and uh and so you know it it gets so far is and this happened to one of my nieces she did not even want to go to school because everyone was a different political leaning than she was. And she got really into it. She really did a lot of research about different political parties, the different candidates, their stance on issues. And when everyone, her teachers included, were really cheering for one political person and she wasn't, it just made it a hostile environment for her. And so we really need to consider that. It really doesn't matter what we feel. when it comes to as far as which political party or whatever. Our job is to teach our children how to think critically, how to make informed decisions, how to inform themselves, right? We're teaching them to read so that one day that they're learning, they're reading, they're learning from what they're reading, right? They're reading to learn. And so we want them to be able to make decisions on our own and really Transfer is really what we want. We want them to be able to transfer whatever we they learn from us to other Classes other books that they're reading other topics that they're learning about and You're really cutting them off when you're imposing your own ideas and You know, one of the things that you said is about making it civil discussion that again, just really the basics of how they make laws in this country. People are coming together from different parts of the country, different parts of the city or whatever, and making decisions. They have different positionality and being able to have a discussion about how you feel and what I feel, and then coming to some common ground and passing laws and taking action for a better society is really what we need. So, you know. I love that. Yeah, and I'm looking at the world from the perspective of a five, six, seven, eight year old. And sometimes the big themes that we have going on right now are themes that cognitively, their little brains are ready to tackle. But I do make it a point to just make sure that they know that, we have a responsibility to know what's going on. And even though if you don't understand at all, so I'll tell them, hey guys, I'm really excited. There's an election going on. When we have the election in November, just to let them know that, hey, this is an opportunity for people to go and vote for the party or the candidates that they feel will do the better job. And it's everyone's responsibility to get involved. There were people who at one point did not have the right to vote. And now that we are expanding those rights that everybody should get excited about it. So we'll even throughout the day practice voting. We'll vote on, hey, guys, we had two different options for activities at recess. Which activity would you want to do the most? Let's vote. And they get all excited about this idea that we're going to vote and. We're gonna count, we're gonna tally the votes. We're gonna do it in a fair way. And you know, the one with the most votes wins. We don't get into the electoral college and all that, but still just this concept. And even the fact that we have two flags, we have the United States flag and we have our state flag in the classroom. You know, the reason we have two flags is because we have responsibilities as, you know, on a state level. So when we have state elections, you know, hey guys, there's some, elections coming up for just the state of Texas. And we just talk about like, you know, it's time to make sure, hey, your parents might be on the way home today. You might say, hey, mom, are you going to go vote? Just ask her, just see. And then we come back the next day, hey, raise your hand. Hey, did you ask your parents if they were voting? What did they say? So just the kids, just an awareness. You know, I don't want them to be 14, 15, 16 years old. And they're like, elections, voting. What is that? You know, I want it. common language, a common idea that this is something that we do as citizens. And so it's been really fun just to even see them. You know, when I turn on my Promethean board, sometimes I'll accidentally hit the little news link and whatever's happening in the news will pop up. And, you know, they'll be like, look, there's the president or, look, there's the White House. Like they're starting to recognize symbols of our nation. So just to be able to see that, you know, they're, at least to some degree have an awareness. And I think that's foundational for where they are right now. Absolutely, I also think in terms of you know, we read with our kids when they're younger a lot of people do And we hear about reading with our kids when they're younger But I don't hear as much and I think a lot of us let it go as far as reading with our kids when they get older Because that's when we could start talking about the different issues right And so where teachers might not do it as much either, right? We might be thinking, you know, we're not reading little stories to the kids anymore, but it's something we could read about issues that are happening. then we could talk about like news sources. We could even see how different news sources cover the same issue. And again, not taking sides, but just reading how different news issues, different news sources handle the same. And they can point out differences and point out what they feel like they agree with or they disagree with, what's opinion, what's fact, what one person or a newspaper left out or website left out. with another one included and what that means. So helping them to that, that's part of critical media literacy, which we've talked about before on the podcast is just taking a, taking a look at those different sources. But sometimes because we're in an era now where there is not four main news sources where it used to be, right? It used to be like you got it from CBS, you got it from Fox, you know, then we started getting CNN, you know, the Fox News uh channel, CBS, you know, so, it still was very limited and narrow, right? If there was something happening, most of those same sites had the same story, right? And it was very similar. And now we're not in that era anymore. So, My husband was saying how uh NASA has a mission to the moon, right? And he was asking some of his students about it. He's also a teacher. And his students didn't know about it, right? Because right now, if things aren't coming up on your algorithm, you may never know about it. But... You know, back in the day, we all were pretty aware of the major news stories, and now it's not like that. So this is another reason as parents and educators, we need to be informing our kids. We do right now, the Supreme Court has a Supreme Court case about birthright citizenship. And people may not even know that because that's one of the things that has been just part of America for so long. If you're born in this country, you are a citizen. uh And it has been something that immigrants who come to this country have used to gain citizenship, and some people don't like that. And so now they're questioning if that is right. And again, whatever side you're on this, if you don't even know about it, then it's hard to weigh in, right? And so it's really about, do they know what's going on? One day our kids are going to be voters. They may be running for political party. They might be the companies or work for the companies that actually enact some of the new laws that are in place. And so, you know, it's important for them to really know what's happening, why it's happening, what is the history of it. And as parents, we could listen to a little clip of the news. read an article with them, send articles their way, and really have discussions. And as parents, of course, you tell them about what your viewpoint is on it, how it aligns with your goals. And as teachers, we're just showing them different sides of this issue. And then they need to kind of make a decision about how they feel about it. Oh, yeah. I remember as a kid in elementary school, had a every week, maybe every Monday or maybe it was the end of the week, we had current event day where you would bring an article of a current event. And the current event would span the week because that's events were current for a week. Now it's like, know, yeah, you could literally like we would have. you know on Monday and then maybe again on Friday we have kids like talk about the current events of the week and we're in elementary school and and I don't know if I could always read everything that was in my little snippet, but I had to talk about it. So I had to know what it said. So that was an opportunity for my mom to sit down with me and say, okay, this is what's going on and this is what this means. And then I had to get up and have my little current event and I had to talk about it and that was it. And then sometimes there'd be a few questions and we'd have a little dialogue. But I just, just in thinking about that, like how important is it even today for kids to know what's going on in the world. And we make so little time for, like the big things are, it's language arts and it's math and science, especially since those things are tested. And so it's becoming a less. I don't know, I guess a lesser subject, especially in elementary grades, to have really deep and meaningful social studies and looking at the extra time that it takes to pull in things that are happening in real life. Because it's not going to be in the curriculum because these are things that are happening right now. It's not history. It's today. What's going on right now? So making, you know, as educators, I want to encourage people to make space for that, make space for. for the kids to have some time to dialogue about things that are happening right now. That's age appropriate, of course. yes. And there's lots of, there's kid news sources. So we also can talk about that and there's lots of free YouTube channels or different things like that that can bring forth some child appropriate content to it, right? So that's something to consider. And that's again, as parents, I always talk about how, If we're not talking about it with our kids, someone else may be pushing their own agenda about it. And I always use the topic of, you know, sex or whatever. Like if you're not talking to your kid about it, someone else will get to your kid and talk about it. A lot of times it's kids who are the same age as them or maybe a little older who are as dumb as they are at this age, right? Everyone is young and dumb, you know, but it's like it's Yeah, it's really important. You know you do you want them coming to them first and imposing their ideas? Because we know this to be true Sometimes the first person who tells the story or approaches them with it that sometimes is what lasts and what what sticks and so You want to be talking to your child about what's going on and your ideas. If you like it, if you don't like it, why you like it, why you don't like it, how this aligns with your belief system, how this fits your view of how the world should be and helping them to transfer those beliefs and those ideas and ideals for how things should be to action. You could even get them involved with volunteering. Or going to see and that was sometimes a field trip right going to see political parties vote You know go to this uh the City Hall and see see people vote for different issues or even Speak up for their beliefs, you know, just go in and say, know There's an issue that I think you guys need to have a new law about because this new thing is is an issue Or you need to get a stop sign here. You need to get a new light. Please fix the road, whatever it is they are standing up and talking about what they want and what they feel like they need and what's going to make things better for people in their lives. yes. You we had an incident at our school where we had a uh boil notice. I don't know if you sometimes have that in your area, but if something happens with the water system for some reason, they're working on a street and the pipe breaks and the pipe is a feeding line into one of the communities, they will issue a boil notice, which means, you know, don't drink the water unless you boil it first. And so we had one of those in the middle of the day. So the kids could not go to the water fountain and couldn't flush the toilet for a few hours. It was the end of the day. So it wasn't too bad. But we talked about, you know, as a community, things that that impact. it's something that could it could honestly could have been something that happened so far away that it doesn't really impact us. But because we share water, we are. Right. share resources, that what impacts one community can impact all communities. So we have to always know what's best for everyone collectively. Because you never know when the thing, like if we just said, oh, well, that's just their broken pipe down there. And we don't have to worry about that. But the water flows. And it flows for me too. And so just having those kind of conversations about the idea that we collectively have an obligation to make sure that everyone is safe. And I love what you said about getting the kids out in the community to do things. I thought it would be really cool to organize like a cleanup day. And then we've had that in California with the right? Where the families come out and you have a whole day picking up trash. Everybody gets their gloves and they get their little rakes and sticks or whatever you have. but just even organizing things like that in your community where the kids can get involved. Doing something that is very doable, but shows a collective concern and a collective desire to see the community pulled together. And I think that's really what we need this next generation to be that kind of global citizen. Like we're thinking about ourselves in the smaller community and how this is gonna eventually spread and impact our world that we live in. Yeah, I really like how yours really was pointing out like... Sometimes we think that things don't affect us, right? Because someone who doesn't know that there is a water issue two towns over may not know that no, that actually affects ours as well. And when a new law is being passed, we might think, that's not a big deal. It's not that I don't have that issue or I don't have kids or I don't have whatever it is. So that doesn't affect me. And then later on, you find out it does affect you or it might affect your really close neighbor that you always talk to or share recipes with or whatever. And you're like, oh, that affects you. and then you're like missing that person or that person is going away or whatever and you're upset because that person. you really being aware of how things are interconnected is also a part of helping kids to understand, know, empathy and different things like that. Even when we think about crime, right? And again, we, depending on your age of the child and all of that, maybe you're not talking to them about it, but. you know, when people aren't educated and they don't know how to read or they get very desperate sometimes as they get older and they aren't able to make a living wage maybe because they aren't educated, they don't have the tools and then they might be, you know, stealing from people, robbing people and you know, as statistic goes that it affects someone that you know, like someone got their stuff stolen, someone's thing was broken into, maybe they robbed the bank or whatever it is, uh hurt someone because they didn't have, right? So some people are like, well, like, I don't have to worry about the education system. My kids are getting a good education or whatever, but it's like you might be affected by someone who's not getting a good education and they'll commit a crime and harm or take or damage. and so everyone is interconnected and that just flows in so many different ways when we're thinking about laws that we might not think apply to us or you know things that are affecting other people it might affect someone that's really we care deeply about em and we don't really think about it or know so Right, right, yes, absolutely. And I read somewhere, maybe I heard it, when you think about communities that have the least amount of crime, it's because those communities have the most of their basic needs met. So making sure that people have their basic needs met is what actually decreases crime. So. That's the whole part of being a citizen in your community that cares about the needs of other people and how that makes it safer for everybody when we think about what do other people need. And talking as an educator and thinking about our role, like I always tell my kids, reading is the most important thing you'll ever do. as the language arts teacher, I don't know, the math teacher might say something differently, but thinking about the ways that kids who have that ability or they're growing in their ability to not only read, but to comprehend and to think critically, how that puts them on a path to be able to do important things in life. And I really look at every aspect of teaching, like even like right now we're doing uh fairy tales. And part of the lesson is that I'm reading fairy tales to them and hopes that maybe one day they'll pick up a fairy tale and read it themselves. But what we've been doing is just looking at these ideas of relationships and these ideas of community. And even in the fairy tale of like Hansel and Gretel, you know, I was like, look, sometimes fairy tales are, you know, fairies and little elves and rumpled still skin and princes and castles. And sometimes they're just brutal. The story of Hansel Gretel are parents who left their children in the woods and they did not have their needs met. and they were left to fend for themselves. oh your version, it wasn't like a witch, it was parents. Well, no, there was a witch. There was a witch. There was a witch. Yes. but originally, it was just poor. Okay, okay, okay. And they weren't step parents or anything. They were just parents. Well, there was a stepmother, but the whole beginning of the story was that they didn't have enough food. So that was why the kids had to get left in the forest, because there wasn't enough food to go around for everyone. And so the idea of scarcity, the idea of not having enough, and the idea of like, OK, had they had enough, we wouldn't have Hansel and Gretel. We wouldn't have the story. Making sure that people have enough to eat. the resources that are basic. And the kids get left in the forest the first time in hopes that they wouldn't make it home in time for dinner and the food would not be there for them. But Hansel was very, he had a out of the box, he was an out of the box thinker. So what did he do? He... collected some rocks and made a little pathway out into the woods so that that's how they found their way back. They followed the path to go back home. So telling that, know, encouraging the kids like books and being able to read, open up your world to the possibilities of how these little kids, and why is this a possible, such a popular story? These little kids figured out a way, you know, they used the little, that they had, the little rocks that they had, but because they were thinkers, they figured out a way. And so I'm always trying to make those kinds of connections that, you you guys are young, but you have the ability to learn and grow. And even the tools that you have today as little people, you have the ability to make a way. So I just love using just even the content of fairy tales to figure out like, how can I inspire students? to love reading, to understand that these characters are not only just entertaining us, but they're lessons in stories. Like what lessons can we get out of this that can inspire us and encourage us? You sometimes the adults are the ones that are messing things up. We got the parents at home messing things up. We got this old lady out in the woods messing things up, you know? there's a responsibility of maybe this younger generation, not making some of the mistakes of the older generation and doing things a little better, a little wiser. What crumbs are you gonna leave out for the next Hansel and Gretel to follow, to make their way back? Yeah, I mean, I think when we were talking about this earlier too, you were talking about just questioning, also questioning like the system, right? The family system of the mother saying, no, we don't need to give this to the kids. Like we need to eat and let's leave them in the woods. Like they might question that. Like instead of just going along with it as it was was gone along with in the story, you know. right, because the idea was that the dad didn't want to leave them, right? And this version of Hansel and Gretel, the dad was like, no, no, we can't do this. This is wrong. And she's like, look, if we don't, we'll starve. So we have to make this choice. And then the dad, he goes along with them with this is actually the stepmother. And, know, when my kids have step parents and I'm like, I'm sure your step parents are fine. This is just, you know, in fairy tales, it's somehow the step parents are always messing things up. You know, I have a couple of. Kids that are like, hey, my stepdad's cool. You know, this is not to be taken in a way where you go back and have any hard feelings against your stepparents. But in this particular version, stepmom is pushing that agenda. But the interesting thing is when we asked the kids, I asked the kids at the end, which parent did you like the most? They all said the dad. And we said, well, why did you like the dad? Well, because even though he left the kids in the forest, he didn't want to. So this idea of intentional being, you your intentions, you know, so I had, you know, okay, well, that's the heart of a child. Like they didn't mean, he didn't want to, but he kind of had his arm twisted. you know, he was, he was being forced to do something he didn't really want to do, which led to another conversation about how important it is to have your own values and not be, to do something that's wrong when you know it's wrong. Just because someone says, you know, it's trying to push you or bully you into doing something. So going back to, you know, parents really establishing those values that you want those kids, your child to carry is super important because they are paying attention. And to be able to say your values count and they matter and they will definitely lead you to one direction or the other depending on the decisions you make. So just making sure that those values are in alignment with how you want your child to grow up basically. Yeah, sometimes, you know, we think we're fooling someone by saying, my values are this, but my actions are doing something different. And kids are actually gonna more likely follow your actions than they are your words. So you can't just say, my value is telling the truth or being peaceful. if you're not doing peaceful things, like you're doing opposite, they're going to follow more like, we're gonna start a lot of drama or cause, you know, conflicts a lot when in fact we are saying something different. So it's like that you really have to put into action the things that you wanna do. That's what I was saying. If you're saying, okay, I do believe in this political movement or this party as a parent, and then you could have the kids volunteer. uh you know, call people or, you know, so I had my daughter participate in all of these different things, right? Like we uh gave food to needy kids or, you know, people, families during Thanksgiving, Christmas. We also like, you know, helped uh to call or do different rallies. You know, so it's whatever you feel like is important to put your action behind it, show them how to be involved politically, and that's going to help your child to see you in action. And they could be in action as well. And that might be, again, always thinking about what leads to their career, what leads to their purpose, and those things could be part of what they do. They could be a mayor, a doctor. uh a lawyer, a political campaign person, all of these things are relevant to what they might be doing or what their purpose is in life. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. And all of these things are very easy to tie into the classroom. You don't have to do a whole lesson on them. It's just making sure that kids are aware, whether you make it a part of your strong start in the morning where you are, you know, highlighting a person in your community that is doing great things as a leader or like I told, I think one of the podcasts I may have mentioned. or maybe it was an idea for a podcast, how my kids have, my fourth graders had an end of the day meeting called class council, where they would discuss any issues that came up that as a teacher is like, we're, you know, we got academics to cover. We're not going to stop and have a conversation about what happened on the playground right now, but we'll save it for class council. And the kids would have an opportunity to, in a very formal way, talk about issues and have that discourse and discussion. And we took votes on, ok. so next time this issue happens, what do you think is the best course of action? And all of those things are super important to helping kids put it in action. And who knows? Maybe one day they'll end up sitting in the Supreme Court. Maybe one day they'll be in some kind of councilman role. Thank you so much for joining the Falling for Learning podcast. Do something today that gives your child the competitive advantage.