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Don't Wait: Now Is the Time to Talk to Kids About the Election

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Don't Wait: Now Is the Time to Talk to Kids About the Election

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Feeling stuck? This NPR piece makes it clear why we should talk to students about elections and gives you pointers and a series of steps to get started!

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Election Day is nearly upon us. Then again, you probably didn't need us to tell you that. Your sweaty palms suggest you're like many Americans who, no matter which candidate they support, have been amped and anxious for months. If you've been riding an emotional, politics-fueled rollercoaster, believe us: Your kids have noticed.

Here's a quick primer from Life Kit on how to talk with your kids about this election.

Process your own emotions and make home a safe space.

Kids can see that we're on edge. They are naturally self-centered, and they'll assume your stress is about them. Be honest and tell them, "Dad/Mom is a little nervous about the election." It's helpful for kids' social and emotional development to hear you naming your emotions.

At the same time, it's not great for you or them to be mainlining the news 24/7, so try your hardest to turn off the TV or the radio, put away your phone and connect - especially over meals and other key moments during the day.

"We can control the amount of information. We can control the amount of exposure," Rosemarie Truglio, senior vice president of curriculum and content at Sesame Workshop, told us when we talked to her about parenting during intense news events.

Ask: "What have you heard and how are you feeling?"

Parents and caregivers, this question is a golden line to have in your back pocket at all times - even when there is no election, no protests, no pandemic casting a long shadow over our lives. Tara Conley, a media researcher at Montclair State University, says adults should choose a quiet moment to check in with their kids, maybe at the dinner table or at bedtime.

The idea, she says, is to allow kids to "ask questions about what they're seeing, how they're feeling and what do they think." In other words: Give kids a safe space to reflect and share. And give yourself a chance to dispel any scary rumors or misinformation they may have come across.

And this is key: Your job, first and foremost, is to listen.

Use this as a learning opportunity

Looking for a silver lining to all the recent upheaval? Well, the Annenberg Public Policy Center's annual Constitution Day survey found a marked increase this year in the awareness among average Americans about their rights, like free speech and the structures of government. And, just over half can name the executive, legislative and judicial branches, an all-time high on this survey.

But the next generation can do better! To be active, empowered citizens, kids need to know basic facts about history and geography. "The more you know, the more you can know," says Ashley Berner, a professor at Johns Hopkins who studies how schools teach civics. In fact, she says, research shows students who have more time with social studies actually do better in other subjects, too.

Election time is a perfect opportunity to help kids build up a foundation of knowledge. Take a look at all the state maps online. For slightly older kids, you can talk about the origins of the Electoral College, during the Constitutional Convention in 1787. If they're fans of the musical Hamilton, you can put on "Cabinet Battle #1" for some great context.

Berner also suggests a simple, civically-minded walk outside. "Talk about what institutions are public and what are private. So which things have we decided as a community that we're going to support, like road-building, or parks or libraries?"

As children grow, a strong foundation of background knowledge will help them sort fact from what tries to pass for it on social media.

Put the election in the context of history - including our "hard history"

Our kids are living through history. It's good to have perspective on the highs and lows that came before. (Honestly, it's sort of helpful for grownups too!)

The United States and its democracy are a work-in-progress, and in order for children to understand the role we all have to play in its improvement, they need to learn about its failures as well as its successes. "I think the highest form of patriotism is self-reflection and saying, 'Hey, this is what we've done wrong,'" says Hasan Kwame Jeffries, a history professor at Ohio State University.

Presenting kids with a less-than-honest version of history risks leaving them feeling confused, alienated, even betrayed when they're exposed to facts that don't fit that rosy narrative. This came up when we spoke with 17-year-old Taylor Pittman, an advisor to a program called Cultures of Dignity, which is dedicated to "civil dialogue" among young people, families and educators.

A high-school senior in New Orleans, Pittman told us about the time her class visited a former plantation that depended on labor from enslaved people. She says the tour guide wanted to talk about "The agriculture, and 'It's so pretty. And look at the nature, '" especially the plantation's oak trees.

"And then when we got back onto the bus, my teacher was like, 'The oak trees are where they used to hang people. They used to have beatings there.' And we talked about how everything they said there at that plantation was wrong," Pittman remembers.

Jeffries says, when talking about race and identity with kids, the point is not to focus solely on the hard stuff but to strike a delicate balance, like when he talks with his daughters.

"Race couldn't always be discrimination and injustice or slavery and Jim Crow ... I had to begin to consciously say, 'You got to balance the good with the bad. You got to balance the pain with the joy.' Right? The hardship with the love."

Don't demonize the other side. We need to teach kids the fine art of tolerant disagreement.

It feels like the United States has never been so divided. It can be tempting to stay in our safe bubbles and bash our opponents. But Berner says we need to actively expose our children to a range of opinions.

"It's so important for young people to be engaged in conversations about meaning and purpose and different political viewpoints." In fact, she says, historically, "civic formation is the prime reason why modern democracy started funding education in the first place."

According to this view, classrooms should be like a little lab where students practice having reasonable, evidence-based debate. "In fact, most of our peer nations have made it a priority to explicitly teach children about the ways that different groups in society actually see the world differently," says Berner.

Emotions are running high right now, but Truglio has told us that at all costs, we should resist the temptation to label the other side "bad guys" or "evil." It's not helpful, and it may increase fear and confusion. Instead, talk about people being in pain, being angry, or making choices we disagree with. Empathy, perspective-taking - it's hard to do, but it's also absolutely necessary in a democracy.

Jeffries adds, "We're afraid to talk about politics ... As my 5-year-old says, 'That don't make no sense!' You got to let people know where you stand. Provide children evidence. Provide them with stories."

Put civics into action.

Don't sit and stew. Invite your kids to join you in the nuts and bolts of civic action - like writing letters, going to (safely masked and distanced) protests, or collecting cans for a food pantry. It's empowering, and it builds a sense of belonging and agency, says Jeffries. "Society is service. You have to serve other people."
The podcast portion of this episode was produced by We'd love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.Sylvie Douglis.

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Now Is A Good Time To Talk To Kids About Civics

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Election Day is nearly upon us. Then again, you probably didn't need us to tell you that. Your sweaty palms suggest you're like many Americans who, no matter which candidate they support, have been amped and anxious for months. If you've been riding an emotional, politics-fueled rollercoaster, believe us: Your kids have noticed.

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Edutopia has helpful suggestions for how to discuss the election once it's done across multiple content areas (including math!). Check out this resource to guide your classroom community in debriefing the elections.

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With careful planning, teachers can use the election to foster social and emotional learning and connect math, literacy, and social studies lessons.

Bob Daemmrich / Alamy Stock Photo

On November 9, 2016, I walked into my math and science classroom and met students who were experiencing a wide range of emotions regarding the outcome of the election. I opted to teach that day by not only analyzing votes and electoral data but also asking students to write about their understanding of the election. In doing so, I was able to teach the election through a cross-curricular lens and create a safe space to help students understand and process it.

I've reflected on how I taught past elections in my classroom, and now, as I work with teachers as a mentor, I'm encouraging them to not only use the election as a jumping-off point for content but develop lesson plans focused on their students' social and emotional needs around the outcome. That way, teachers are prepared to handle and even leverage the complexities that characterize this remarkable moment.

Creating a Safe Space for Discussion

As we approach Election Day, our role as educators is to empower our students to understand the inner workings of our democratic process and the historic moment we are living through. We need to create safe spaces to address the social and emotional needs of our students so they can focus on learning, while empowering them with the tools they need to think critically about the world around them.

One way to address students' social and emotional needs is to use community circles to establish a classroom norm of talking, tolerance, and empathy. Effective community circles have clear, co-constructed norms and procedures that ensure that students can share their thoughts and opinions, and listen to and respect one another. Social justice standards from Teaching Tolerance provide a strong framework to help teachers build lessons centered on respect and empathy; that approach can help students learn how to respect others who have different viewpoints and how to express disagreements in a constructive manner. Another option is to develop discussion norms in collaboration with students.

Many teachers also find themselves wondering how to answer student questions, manage their discomfort discussing the election in a Zoom classroom, and address disagreements or polarizing political rhetoric from students. The Civically Engaged Classroom outlines a plethora of activities teachers can use to address these concerns. Other sites-like Rock the Vote, Facing History, iCivics, and the Center for Civic Education -provide nonpartisan resources around civic engagement and voting for educators. Nearpod has many curated lessons about the electoral process, voting, and government.

Cross-Curricular Approaches

It's important that discussion about politics and the 2020 election not occur in silos or only in social science classes, but across content areas. A clear teaching plan, no matter what subject you teach, is key to creating a safe learning space for students.

Math: Political pundits suggest that we may not know the outcome of the election on election night. Use this opportunity, both before and after November 3, to track both the popular vote and electors in the Electoral College, and consider making use of FiveThirtyEight, a website that uses a wide array of polling and forecast data to project election outcomes (including in some local races) or the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, which also offers data and analysis.

Consider teaching students how to apply mathematical concepts to the total votes earned by each candidate and analyze local election data on propositions and ballot measures. Alternatively, teachers can host a mock election using Zoom polls or Google Forms, analyze classroom votes, and compare them to actual election results.

Reading graphs and charts is key to understanding elections, and is a skill that can be utilized in many content areas. Demonstrate how to create line, graph, and pie charts. Students can then create their own graphics using election and polling data to make predictions or analyze outcomes. Examine election forecast models from different news outlets and ask for observations about what each one analyzes.

Reading and writing: Help students analyze media sources as part of media literacy. Students can evaluate multiple sources, look for objective evidence or biases, and discuss the power of persuasion as well as the perspectives offered by diverse news outlets.

In terms of writing, prompts like "Twenty years from now, I hope my future children will describe this country as..." or "One thing I wish adults who voted knew is..." allow students to share and process their understanding of the election and the democratic process. Students can also write persuasive essays centered on their beliefs and opinions, while simultaneously learning how to use evidence to back up their opinions.

Social studies: Discuss the role of the Electoral College and its purpose, dive into the Constitution, and examine the process by which power is transferred from one president to another. You could also analyze the evolution of voting rights over time, compare and contrast similar moments in history to our current election, or study the branches of government and their role in a presidential election.

Elections present a powerful learning opportunity for students. While it might be a challenge to teach around the 2020 election, when instruction is framed in an unbiased, respectful way, we can advance our students' understanding of politics, history, and other academic subject matter, while supporting them socially and emotionally. Together, we can educate and empower our next generation of voters.

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With careful planning, teachers can use the election to foster social and emotional learning and connect math, literacy, and social studies lessons. Bob Daemmrich / Alamy Stock Photo On November 9, 2016, I walked into my math and science classroom and met students who were experiencing a wide range of emotions regarding the outcome of the election.

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Democratic Knowledge Project's 2020 Election Module

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Democratic Knowledge Project's 2020 Election Module

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Harvard's Democratic Knowledge Project has a mini-unit to support teaching and learning about the elections. It's geared toward 8th grade students and is packed with great lessons and resources!

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Defining democracy can be tricky. A central feature of healthy democracies is the peaceful transfer of power between leaders and parties - where one person gives up their office as a result of an election. The transition may be to the opposing party, but the respect for the democratic process results in a peaceful transfer.

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Fostering Civil Discourse: How Do We Talk About Issues That Matter?

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Fostering Civil Discourse: How Do We Talk About Issues That Matter?

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Check out the Facing History and Ourselves guide on how to prepare your students in civil discourse, no matter the setting!

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The ideas and tools in this guide will help you prepare students to engage in reflective conversations on topics that matter, whether you are in a remote, hybrid, or in-person setting.

Get full access to this content

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Fostering Civil Discourse: How Do We Talk About Issues That Matter?

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The ideas and tools in this guide will help you prepare students to engage in reflective conversations on topics that matter, whether you are in a remote, hybrid, or in-person setting.

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What is democracy? How do we know if a democracy is succeeding?

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What is democracy? How do we know if a democracy is succeeding?

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Democracy is an oft-used term in election season. This Facing History and Ourselves article helps you define what democracy is with your students and assess the strength of any democracy of your choice!

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We live in a time of great tension and conflict in democracies around the world. Elections in recent years-both inside and outside of the United States-have revealed and exacerbated deep divisions within many democratic societies, raising fundamental questions about the strength and fragility of democracy in our world today. The global COVID-19 pandemic has placed additional pressure on democracy. Some governments are using the pandemic to justify increasingly authoritarian behavior, and people who disagree with their government's response to the crisis may lose trust in government for years to come. The pandemic has disrupted elections around the world, and many in the United States fear the impact that the coronavirus might have on the 2020 presidential election. At the same time, crises-such as the one we are in now-present us with an opportunity to create significant, positive change, which could lead to a strengthening of democracy over the next generation.

This Teaching Idea provides students with an opportunity to explore and deepen their understanding of the concept of democracy and equips them with a framework to assess the health of a democracy, as well as make meaning of news stories that report on democracies at risk in the world today. In the final activity, students connect their own understanding of democracy to the following quote from civil rights leader John Lewis:

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 advance of using this Teaching Idea, you should read the January 2017 Facing Today blog How to Assess the Strength of a Democracy. The second activity below uses questions from the blog's "Checklist for a Healthy Democracy." You can share the nine questions in the checklist with your class using the Google Slides linked below.
Note: What follows are teacher-facing instructions for the activities. Get student-facing instructions in the Google Slides for this Teaching Idea.

1. How Do You Define the Term Democracy?

Use the Concept Maps teaching strategy to have students generate, sort, and connect their ideas about democracy on a piece of paper. If you have colored pencils or markers, pass them out for the sort and connect stages of the strategy to help students categorize and organize their ideas.

After students have shared their ideas in pairs or small groups, elaborating on their own maps, use the Wraparound strategy to have each student share one idea with the class.

Remote Learning Note: Ask your students to create their concept maps individually ahead of time. Then, students can share their concept maps with a small group synchronously in a virtual breakout room or asynchronously during a defined period of time in a discussion forum. Ask students to share one idea with the class, either synchronously or asynchronously, using the Wraparound (Remote Learning) strategy.

2. How Can You Assess The Strength of a Democracy?

Next, in pairs or as a whole class, ask students to spend a few minutes brainstorming questions they would ask to assess the strength of a democracy. You might provide them with an example to help them get started: Is there a free and open press? Have a few pairs share their questions.

Pass out or project the nine "Checklist for a Healthy Democracy" questions from the Facing Today blog post How to Assess the Strength of a Democracy. Compare the list with the questions that the students brainstormed. Then have students work in small groups to respond to the following questions about the "Checklist for a Healthy Democracy":

How would you answer the questions?

What do you need to learn more about to give stronger answers to the questions? Where can you get that information?

Then, ask students to return to their concept map for democracy and add new ideas or questions that the checklist raised for them.

Remote Learning Note: To teach this activity during a synchronous session, explain the instructions to the full class, then send students to virtual breakout rooms to brainstorm the questions with a small group. After a few minutes, bring students back to the full class session, and ask each group to share one or two questions. Then, ask your students to read the "Checklist for a Healthy Democracy" questions, which are available in the Slides for this Teaching Idea. Students can return to their original breakout rooms to discuss the questions. Finally, students can revisit their concept maps individually.

For asynchronous learning, students can share their questions for assessing the strength of a democracy with classmates in an online forum. Then, students can discuss the "Checklist for a Healthy Democracy" with a small group during a defined period of time in an online forum. Finally, students can revisit their concept maps individually.

3. Who Is Responsible for Upholding Democracy?

Civil rights leader John Lewis wrote the following statement about democracy in a letter that was published in the New York Times after his death:

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.

Ask students to read this quote and then discuss:

What do you think John Lewis meant when he said democracy is an act not a state?

What do you think the term Beloved Community means in this quote? How could thinking about your society as a Beloved Community be a part of building democracy?

How do you think John Lewis's definition of democracy is similar to or different than the one you created on your concept map?

According to John Lewis, each generation is responsible for taking action to support democracy. What actions do you think people in your own generation are taking to create "a nation and world society at peace with itself"?

Finally, ask students to read the rest of John Lewis's letter, Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation.

Remote Learning Note: Ask students to discuss the quote synchronously in virtual breakout rooms, or asynchronously during a defined time period in a virtual discussion forum. Each group can summarize their keys ideas to share with the class, either in writing or orally.

Extensions

1. Explore a Checklist Question

Ask each student to choose one question from the "Checklist for a Healthy Democracy" that they would like to explore on their own. Have them find a current news article that helps them answer the question in a new, different, or deeper way.

2. Learn More about Political Polarization in the United States
Some experts argue that increased political polarization places stress on democracy. To learn more about political polarization, review our Explainer: Political Polarization in the United States with your students. Discuss your students' responses to the questions in the "Ask Yourself" boxes throughout the Explainer.

Additional Resource

For strategies to help navigate difficult conversations with your students, we recommend that you read Fostering Civil Discourse: How Do We Talk About Issues That Matter? When discussing current events that can raise issues of identity, membership, and belonging, it is important that students know and respect each other as individuals, are guided by a classroom contract that they collaborated to create, and feel that they can take risks and feel heard. This guide has tools to help you create this kind of inclusive community in your classroom.

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We live in a time of great tension and conflict in democracies around the world. Elections in recent years-both inside and outside of the United States-have revealed and exacerbated deep divisions within many democratic societies, raising fundamental questions about the strength and fragility of democracy in our world today.

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This Facing History and Ourselves resource shares strategies for students to fact check what is shared online. This resource is especially helpful during campaign season!

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We are flooded with news of varying quality, and it is often difficult to tell the difference between fake news and propaganda, one-sided stories, or credible news. In recent years, dangerous misinformation has spread online, such as fake news about political candidates, designed to sway voters and influence elections, and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, which impact children's health. Students need techniques for evaluating the news stories and ads they come across, especially as the United States nears the 2020 presidential elections. Learning to read laterally is a key media literacy strategy that can help students determine the quality of online sources.

This technique is described in a 2018 study conducted by two Stanford researchers, Lateral Reading and the Nature of Expertise, which showed that college students and trained historians struggled to evaluate the online sources shown to them by researchers because they read vertically, meaning they focused on information contained within the original website. Fact checkers were able to quickly determine the credibility of websites by reading laterally, meaning they opened multiple tabs in their browsers to read what other sources say about the website.

This Teaching Idea trains students to read online sources laterally, like professional fact checkers do, so that they can better evaluate the credibility of news they see online.

1. Experiment with Vertical Reading

In this activity, students will be asked to evaluate two articles by reading vertically, using only information they find on the two organizations' websites. In the next activity, they will be asked to re-evaluate the articles using lateral reading.

Place students into groups and ensure that each group has access to a device with internet. (Note: Alternatively, you could organize this activity as a full class activity, using one device and a projector.) Ask your students to open the three pages: Stigma: At the Root of Ostracism and Bullying originally published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Pediatrics homepage, and Bullying at School: Never Acceptable from the American College of Pediatricians. (Note: the article Stigma: At the Root of Ostracism and Bullying is no longer available directly on the American Academy of Pediatrics website, so in order to follow the activity, ask students to open the article as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics homepage.)

Tell your students that they will have two chances to evaluate these pages. In this activity, they should spend five minutes reviewing the information they find in the the two articles as well as on the websites of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Pediatrics. Then students should choose which article they think is more credible. They should not visit other websites to read about the American Academy of Pediatrics or the American College of Pediatricians.

In their groups, they should answer the following questions:

Which article do you think is more credible?

How did you reach this conclusion? What aspects of the two organizations' websites did you look at?

Once students have finished the first round of evaluations, ask a representative from each group to present their group's findings to the class.

Explain to your students that in this round, they practiced vertical reading, since they read down through the information they found on the organizations' websites.

2. Experiment with Lateral Reading

Ask your students to conduct another five-minute round of evaluations, with the same groups from the previous activity. This time, students should focus on finding out information about the two organizations that published the original articles by visiting other websites.

In their groups, they should answer the following questions:

What new information did you find by visiting other websites?

Which websites did you find the most useful?

How did this information change or reinforce the conclusions you reached in the first round?

Which page do you now think is more credible?

Once students have finished the second round of evaluations, ask a representative from each group to present their group's findings to the class.

Explain to your students that in this round, they practiced lateral reading, since they read about the organizations across the internet.

Use the think aloud teaching strategy to model lateral reading for your students and clarify any remaining questions about the two pages. First, search for the American Academy of Pediatrics, and show your students that the organization is a large and highly respected medical organization. (See for example the entry on the American Academy of Pediatrics from MedicineNet. Sources such as the New York Times link to research from the American Academy of Pediatrics.)

Then, search for the American College of Pediatricians. Show your students that this organization is a small splinter group of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which broke with the Academy over the issue of adoption by same-sex couples. The College advocates for approaches known to be harmful to LGBTQ people. (See for example the Southern Poverty Law Center's entry on The American College of Pediatricians or Psychology Today's article about the organization.)

Return to the The American College of Pediatricians' article Bullying at School: Never Acceptable and show your students that the article subtly implies that there should not be bullying prevention programs that are specifically designed to reduce bullying against LGBTQ youth, by arguing that programs should not focus on "the special characteristic or activity of one study or group" or validate "individuals displaying temporary behaviors or orientations."

Reading about the organizations on other websites can help students learn about the credibility of the organizations' work or any biases they might have.

Finally, discuss with your students: How do you think you can apply what you learned in this activity to reading news that you see in your social media feeds or elsewhere online?

Extension: Practice on the News

Ask your students to bring in news articles or studies that they come across in their social media feeds or elsewhere online. As a class, practice reading laterally about the news story to find information about who wrote it and how credible it is. You can use the following strategies to help you in your lateral reading:

Search for the organization on Wikipedia and follow the references at the bottom of the page to find out more about the organization.

Search for other news stories on the same topic and compare their coverage.

Look up who owns the domain of the website.

Use fact-checking websites to evaluate the information, such as PolitiFact, Snopes, the Washington Post's Fact Checker, or NPR's Fact Check.

Additional Resources

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How to Read the News Like a Fact Checker: a Media Literacy Strategy

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Reading "laterally" is a key media literacy strategy that helps students determine the quality of online sources. This Teaching Idea trains students to use this technique to evaluate the credibility of the news they encounter on social media feeds or elsewhere online.

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Generation Citizen: Democracy Doesn't Pause

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Generation Citizen: Democracy Doesn't Pause

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Generation Citizen has free civics tools specifically for remote learning that are worth checking out. If you are going over election information with students, the last lesson (and family activity!) on the page addresses the history of voting rights. Do check it out!

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DEMOCRACY DOESN'T PAUSE

Generation Citizen's response to the current moment

The rise of the COVID-19 global pandemic has created a great deal of uncertainty and disruption for our communities, school partners, teachers, and young people. This crisis will be especially acute for vulnerable and historically underrepresented populations. For the 72% of GC students who receive free or reduced-price lunch, the effects of COVID-19 are immediate and disproportionate.

This moment demonstrates the critical need for responsive government and civics education in building system-wide capacity to respond to the needs of our communities - during times of crisis and every day. Whiter and wealthier school districts already have greater access to effective civic learning opportunities. As civic engagement and our democracy are disrupted, not only will educational disparities increase, but marginalized communities and young people will also face increased barriers to engagement at a time when their voices are more vital than ever.

In response to these new needs and to ensure democracy doesn't pause, we're focusing on three critical objectives: providing resources, facilitating connections, and sustaining engagement.

We're creating and widely distributing civics education resources for educators and caretakers to engage young people and sustain high quality Action Civics education during distance learning. We're also pursuing a collaborative approach to jointly share resources with partner organizations across the country. This includes:

Free Lesson Plans for Teachers, Students, Families, & Caregivers

Download our brand new virtual lessons that are tailored to the current moment, equipping teachers, caregivers, and families to facilitate Action Civics activities at home. Share your experiences with the lessons using #democracydoesntpause on social media.

Lobby a Legislator

Learn how to identify elected representatives and help students contact them about an issue they care about.

Young Changemakers

Learn how to amplify students' civic power to create change in our communities.

Talking About Cens-US

Learn how to engage students in the 2020 Census in a culturally responsive way.

Our Community's Assets

Learn how to engage students in analyzing their communities' responses to COVID-19.

Countering COVID: How is your City Responding?

Help students develop empathy, in addition to critical-thinking and problem-solving skills and put them to use.

What is an Ordinance?

Students will write their own local law in order to better understand some fundamental questions about local governance.

Write an Op-Ed

Guide students through selecting an issue, writing their perspective, and pitching an op-ed.

Remove Barriers to Voting

Students will dive deep into the history of voting rights in the U.S. and think about why voting matters to them and how we can all work together to remove barriers to civic participation.

Support for Partner Teachers

The cornerstone of our work has always been the active, personalized support we provide our partner teachers. While we all contend with rapid changes, we're deepening our work with individual teachers and expanding our use of technology to meet emerging needs by:

- Remotely supporting teachers as they adopt Google Classroom

- Coordinating video calls for students to interact with guest speakers from their communities

- Sharing relevant resources from their local communities

- Providing frequent structured check-ins with teachers.

Facilitating Connections

Opportunities for authentic connection are needed more than ever. We're getting creative and building space to stay in touch with students, educators, parents and caregivers, policymakers, and more by:

Virtual Civics Days & Civic Gatherings

At the end of each semester, students from different schools and communities come together at Civics Days to present their Action Civics projects, celebrate their accomplishments and reflect on their learnings. GC will facilitate virtual versions of these events that people across the country can attend and where young people can continue to lead with their voices, passion, and expertise in the pursuit of deepened confidence in their civic power.

California Virtual Civics Day: Thursday, May 28 at 2 pm PDT. Click here to submit questions for the event ahead of time (y preguntas en ) or simply head over to to Generation Citizen's Facebook page at event time to join the livestream.

National Community Summit: Thursday, June 11 at 7 pm EDT. Sign up here.

Platforms for Youth Storytelling

One of the most inspiring aspects of this difficult time is the way communities have rallied around a shared desire to help those most impacted by the crisis. However, especially with schools closed, the perspectives of young people are strikingly underrepresented. As the context of this crisis rapidly evolves, it's critical that we amplify the experiences of our youth. We're doing so by sharing and organizing the following opportunities:

GC Student Leadership Board's youth-led podcast, Students Uncensored , which shines a light on ways young people are leading positive change in their communities.

A multimedia storytelling contest for youth around the country led by our Vote16 campaign. With the movement to lower the voting age to 16 growing, this storytelling contest encourages youth to reflect and creatively express their views on the issue. Members of the Vote16USA Youth Advisory Board will serve as judges to evaluate the submitted videos, writing, music, and visual art.

Making Space for Youth-Led Virtual Responses: The young leaders on our Student Leadership Board will host virtual response forums featuring a diverse group of youth from urban and rural communities around the country to share their authentic views of how their lives have been impacted by the crisis, how they see their community working to adapt, and how civic systems are and aren't responding to needs.

Virtual SXSW EDU Panels

We worked with partner organizations to create virtual spaces and reinvigorate the conversations intended to take place at the SXSW EDU conference back in March, unfortunately cancelled due to COVID-19. We had a super dynamic conversation with folks from Mississippi to Massachusetts and beyond about how we can reimagine civic education & participation in democracy. Thanks to our CEO, Scott Warren, Brianna Carmen of for leading the discussion. If you weren't able to join us, check out the recording Voto Latino , Shaniqua McClendon of , & Jyoti Sarda of Crooked Media here.

Virtual Community Spaces

As we expand the formal coaching and support, we also recognize that all of us across the GC community are going through this crisis together. One antidote we can provide is to create opportunities for strong, authentic connections. We'll offer our teachers, college student volunteers, and Student Leadership Board members and alumni the space for informal connection and leaning into networks of support.

Connection through EdTalks

We're opening up our EdTalks series, a space where we convene and open the floor to people to share their expertise and skills with our broader GC community. We're eager to collaborate with partners who bring new insights and ideas that can strengthen our work during this critical time and welcome sponsorships of these events.

Virtual Wall of Win (WoW)

With restrictive social distancing measures in place, there is even greater value to connecting people through sharing stories of impact and inspiration. This interactive Wall of Win on our website will feature cascading success stories and logos from our partners, enabling all members of our community to elevate the ways that young people are continuing to make a difference from their homes, recognize the way our teachers and staff are making an impact across the country, and celebrate funding partners that join our family during this critical time by showcasing their philanthropic commitment. This platform and the aligned #GCWoW social media campaign we will launch will help students and teachers recognize their connection to this movement despite their isolation, and it will provide an opportunity for student work to receive public recognition and celebration.

Sustaining Engagement

Catalyzing informed, active civic participation is critical in this moment. Not only does social distancing create barriers to voting, census participation, journalism, and engagement in community forums - this crisis strains the ability of our local and s tate governments to be responsive while our communities contend with rapidly emerging challenges. This is shaping how an entire generation understands democracy - and their role within it. We're tackling this head on by:

Promoting the 2020 Census

Even as entire industries shut down their operations, the 2020 Census continues. Recognizing the need for an accurate count, we've modified our Talking About Cens-US unit for teachers to lead virtually. In addition, we're leading virtual trainings for teachers to deliver these culturally responsive lessons effectively. Check out a recent our New York team presented on to help you get started. While you're here, respond to the 2020 Census yourself!

Launching Beyond the Ballot

Knowing that democracy doesn't pause during a crisis, and in fact becomes more relevant than ever, Generation Citizen is launching a Beyond the Ballot initiative in partnership with What the Constitution Means to Me , a play by Heidi Schreck that reimagines how the Constitution will shape the next generation.
Join us by taking a 15-second video of yourself telling us how you would amend the Constitution. Post it on social media with the hashtag #beyondtheballot! See all the responses .
In addition,The Beyond the Ballot initiative will include resources to mobilize civic engagement in the lead-up to November, as well as equip people to stay engaged beyond this election. They include:

- Virtual lessons that activate youth to make a direct impact and mobilize others

- Step-by-step Civic Action Toolkits for a range of civic activities including voter registration

- Guides for policymakers to champion youth civics education and engagement

- Resources for caregivers to support youth civic engagement

- Pledges to take action and stay engaged during this critical time

View our 2016 Beyond the Ballot initiative

Sharing Best Practices

We've seen widespread momentum around efforts to support youth civic engagement virtually from forms hosted by elected officials and community organizations to families and caregivers seeking activities to educate their children about this historic civic moment. There is both need and opportunity for all of us to cultivate young people as civic leaders, especially while schools are closed. Our 360 Civic Learning Toolkit provides insights and guidance for anyone engaging in these efforts to ensure they're effective for youth from historically underserved communities.

Engagement Through Media

One of the most powerful aspects of Action Civics is the way it builds authentic relationships and connections across local communities. The new virtual resources we've designed incorporate opportunities for young people across the country to connect and share experiences with peers. Through our interactive #democracydoesntpause social media campaign, our youth and partners will share experiences and motivate each other to stay informed and involved. Additionally, we're working with young people to share their voices and perspectives in opinion pieces and sharing daily civic participation prompts for anyone to engage with on social media.

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Democracy Doesn't Pause | Generation Citizen

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The rise of the COVID-19 global pandemic has created a great deal of uncertainty and disruption for our communities, school partners, teachers, and young people. This crisis will be especially acute for vulnerable and historically underrepresented populations. For the 72% of GC students who receive free or reduced-price lunch, the effects of COVID-19 are immediate and disproportionate.

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This 3-lesson mini-unit on the history of voting rights and the struggle against voter suppression is sure to engage students and start a conversation on the importance of voting!

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Teaching Activities (Free)

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 2020.
Unit with three lessons on voting rights, including the history of the struggle against voter suppression in the United States.

Time Periods: All US History

Themes: Voting Rights, Civil Rights Movements, Democracy & Citizenship

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca
2020 is both an election year and the 150th anniversary of the passage of the 15th Amendment, making it an important time to invite our students to consider the history of voting rights in the United States. The struggle for the ballot is emblematic of the struggle to make real the democratic promises of this country's founding narrative. Just as the United States has never been a true "government by the people, for the people," the right to vote has always been incomplete, contested, and compromised by the racism, sexism, classism, and xenophobia of policymakers and the interests they act to protect. In a moment of renewed and insidious voter suppression, examining the history of voting rights also presents an opportunity to challenge the deeply entrenched fable of the steady forward progress of U.S. history. Voting rights have expanded in the last 400 years, but they have also been taken away, requiring activists to rise up, again and again, to restore the achievements of prior generations. The fight for the ballot is ongoing.

Recent elections have brought forth the old problem of voter suppression in a new guise - voter ID laws, voter roll purges, polling places shuttered. As activists combat these restrictive, antidemocratic measures, it is vital that we provide students historical context for their efforts, which is why the Zinn Education Project has put together a cluster of lessons on the history of voting rights in the United States. These lessons can be taught individually, but they are presented here as a progression.

The first lesson considers the question of who should vote. Students first share their understanding of what makes a "qualified" voter, then reconsider their thinking after a close reading of an oral history by Fannie Lou Hamer.

The second lesson asks students to predict how policymakers might have restricted the right to vote for certain groups to thwart movements and laws that expanded voting rights.

The final lesson is a mixer role play in which students learn about a variety of people with firsthand experience having their voting rights granted or denied. The roles reach back as far as the colonial era and forward to the present. This lesson closes with a timeline activity in which students create a visual map depicting the expansion and contraction of voting rights over time.

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Grant M. Hayden has written:

The history of voting in the United States has not been characterized by a smooth and inexorable progress toward universal political participation. It has instead been much messier, littered with periods of both expansion and retraction of the franchise with respect to many groups of potential voters.

Young people need to know this "messier" history; it is a history that calls us to action, a history that conveys that voting rights are not definitively won, but must be struggled for and defended.

Classroom Stories

High Social Studies Administrator, Bayside, New York

Middle Social Studies Teacher, New York City, New York

High Social Studies Teacher, Monrovia, California

High Social Studies Teacher, Oregon

Loved being able to lead a @ZinnEdProject session today for other district teachers! We did the voting rights mixer and it was a blast! So many great conversations and ideas💡for implementing 🙌🏼 @CFB_Soc_Studies @mrschapman808 pic.twitter.com/gkqvy2mxOT

- History Gone TRUONG! (@truong_terri) February 14, 2020

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Who Gets to Vote? Teaching About the Struggle for Voting Rights in the United States - Zinn Education Project

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Teaching Activities (Free) Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 2020. Unit with three lessons on voting rights, including the history of the struggle against voter suppression in the United States.

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What does #ElectionEDU look like in math?

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What does #ElectionEDU look like in math?

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This article offers up lots of planning potential for how to address the election in middle school math classes!

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AMLE - Association for Middle Level Education

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Integrating global issues in the middle school math classroom makes math come alive and engage the students in a very effective way. As the Asia Society so eloquently puts it, "Math is a powerful tool for global understanding and communication. Using it, students can make sense of the world and solve complex and real problems."

Democracy is an important global issue, in fact, I would argue it is a fundamental human right that when trampled upon can become the root of conflict, displacement, human crisis such as the refugee emergency and so on.

A popular topic in an election year like this is actually counting votes, a topic that becomes even more mesmerizing when students discover-to their unending surprise-that there are several ways to count votes, and, depending on the counting method, the winner can be different.

Educators can use an Elections Process lesson to

Foster interdisciplinary connections among different subject matter, such as social studies, civics and math

Speak about the election process

Discuss how mathematics can be instrumental to understand elections in depth

Help students appreciate voting in a more global perspective as they discover that the way we vote in the United States presidential election is not the only possible one and that other countries may use different methods.

The mathematics of elections and voting developed in this unit will allow students to understand that there is no best solution to the problem of vote counting (just like for so many major issues) and that it is important to understand the benefits and limitations of each method, as the election results may depend on it.

In addition, the lesson will inform students about the Electoral College, and its role in the presidential election. A great resource can be the New York Times Learning Network lesson). You can also look at the plurality voting versus the Electoral College method (see for example Getting into the Electoral College set of lessons by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics), as well as explore the role of mathematics in choosing a winner.

In my lesson, students focus on exploring alternative voting methods (for example, the Borda count method, Vote-for-Two, and the pairwise comparison method), determine the winner of an election based on each voting method, and compare the election results based on each method. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics provides some great resources (for example " Picking a Winner" and "How does your Vote Count?").

I have created a set of fake data for electing the president of the grade 7 class, choosing among three popular female entertainers (I teach in an all-girls school where actually the president of each class is a girl). The data produce a different winner depending on the set of rules we choose to count the votes ( worksheet).

The students are flabbergasted by this result, which allows us to even mention Arrow's Impossibility Theorem and more importantly the necessity to understand the set of counting rules in depth, to monitor them carefully and to keep them stable for the duration of the election once the election has started.

The students are even more surprised (and also have a great time) when they play the re-districting game and realize that a mapmaker can have an outsized effect on an election through redistricting. The game allows them to actually redraw the map of a voting district to accommodate the wishes of the chairman of a party, if they are careful enough and follow some basic rules. There is a lot to learn to protect our democracy and democracy around the world. Or as Sam Wang, professor of neuroscience at Princeton, puts it in this New York Times article " let math save our democracy"!

Alessandra King is a mathematics teacher and middle school mathematics coordinator for Holton-Arms School, an independent school for girls in grades 3-12 in Bethesda, Maryland. E-mail: Alessandra.King@holton-arms.edu

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Understanding the Election Process through Math in Middle School

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Integrating global issues in the middle school math classroom makes math come alive and engage the students in a very effective way. As the Asia Society so eloquently puts it, "Math is a powerful tool for global understanding and communication.

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Electoral Decoder: How Have states voted over time?

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Electoral Decoder: How Have states voted over time?

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Have students explore this interactive cartogram from PBS that allows you to track Electoral College votes from presidential elections dating all the way back to 1789!

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PBS Electoral Decoder | PBS LearningMedia

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Use this cartogram to explore all 58 past presidential elections from 1789-2016. Learn about the significance of the Electoral College by comparing the map and the electoral cartogram. Delve further into history by reading a brief overview and looking at key events for every past election. Then, use…

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Share this iCivics infographic with students to understand how one qualifies to run for president, what the steps in an election process are, and what candidates can do on the campaign trail.

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Lace up your shoes and learn how candidates run the race to become President of the United States! In this printable infographic, your students will see who can qualify to run, how they must prepare, and the different hurdles they have to overcome to make it to the finish line: Inauguration Day.

Love this infographic? Explore all of our free election curriculum and teaching resources at our Election Headquarters .

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Identify the constitutional qualifications for running for president

Learn the major steps involved in the presidential election process

Understand the choices candidates can make in how to run their campaign

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Lace up your shoes and learn how candidates run the race to become President of the United States! In this printable infographic, your students will see who can qualify to run, how they must prepare, and the different hurdles they have to overcome to make it to the finish line: Inauguration Day.

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Check out NY Times Student Opinions Column

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Check out NY Times Student Opinions Column

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Over the next few weeks, this column will explore topics related to the upcoming elections and related current events. Each piece includes a brief history connected to the topic of choice and a comments section booming with student responses. Have your students join in on the conversation!

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Daily questions inspired by Times content from across sections. Join the conversation!

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Engage your students in election talk with this iCivics lesson on the power of voting, voting rights, and current issues surrounding voting.

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Voting isn't a requirement, but it is our responsibility and our right. It's the most direct way that every citizen can influence government, but many citizens just don't do it. In this lesson, students find out who can vote and the differences in voting by state. They will consider the importance of voting, connect with current issues, and decide for themselves if voting is something they will do.

Got a 1:1 classroom? Download fillable PDF versions of this lesson's materials below!

Love this lesson? Explore all of our free election curriculum and teaching resources at our Election Headquarters .

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Identify voting as a direct way for citizens to participate in federal, state, and local governments

Examine how voting rights have expanded over time

Recognize that voting requirements and policies are governed by states and that different states have different rules

Describe current issues surrounding voting and their impact

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Voting isn't a requirement, but it is our responsibility and our right. It's the most direct way that every citizen can influence government, but many citizens just don't do it. In this lesson, students find out who can vote and the differences in voting by state.