Three weeks from an election that many argue will determine the future of our democracy, teachers are grappling with how to adequately guide their students through the constant stream of news about efforts to imperil voting for specific groups.
From felons’ voting rights being restored and subsequently limited due to penalty fines, to the closing of polling sites in Texas, to questions raised on debate stages about whether candidates will accept the election outcomes, one thing is certain: the current moment is full of teachable moments for social studies teachers.
In a recent session of a California History and Social Science Project network sponsored series, Discord and Crisis: the 2020 Election, Dr. Daisy Martin reminded teachers that the struggles over voting are, of course, not new. In its negative framing, she argued, the Fifteenth Amendment allowed for loopholes that those trying to suppress the vote have exploited ever since.
Providing specific grounding in the history of Louisiana’s Grandfather clauses, literacy tests, and the post Reconstruction racial terror documented by Ida B. Wells, Martin connected the past with current fights for democracy, invoking the late John Lewis’s words:
“Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.”
In service of these words, and as teachers navigate the challenges of the current moment, Martin underscored the importance of teachers’ work: to be there for your students and to teach democracy.
Participants in the session reported their excitement to put these ideas into action with their students and generated different ways they might use the resources provided in the session. One teacher elaborated, “The phrase “developing political consciousness” jumped out at me. So, helping students understand concrete ways they can do this: voting, talking to family, teaching others.”
Others imagined using current struggles over suffrage in Texas and Florida as potential case studies for their students. Another teacher reasoned that she might “use the contemporary source set, explore the voting websites and then some sort of call to action…we have learned about this, what now?”
Find struggles over suffrage source sets—both past and present— along with additional resources for teaching about voting rights here.
Register now for future Discord and Crisis workshops here. 