Courageous Conversations About Our Schools

This podcast usually focuses on how adults can have less contentious, more fruitful conversations about schools, but my two guests on this episode have plenty to say about the need to strengthen communication and relationships among young people. In fact, Nina Murphy and Kellie Dromboski (along with Maurice Elias) have written a book on the subject called, Morning Classroom Conversations. They show how devoting just 15 minutes each day for genuine conversation can have significant social, emotional, and academic benefits. By creating “brave spaces” for student conversation, students learn how limiting, even damaging, modern day interactions can be. “Without that perspective, many young people’s view of themselves and their future is at the mercy of how their social media communications are made and responded to. As we know all too well, this can take the extreme form of making adolescents hypersensitive to cyberbullying—even to the point of anxiety, depression, of suicidality,” they write.

And to educators who say, “We have so much to cover, especially with the learning loss from the pandemic, that we don’t have time to add one more thing into our day,” Murphy, a school psychologist, says (around the 25:20 mark), “It takes more time when we don’t do it because of the time it takes to recover from all of the other difficulties students are having.” She says high school teachers at her school frequently tell her, “…they’ve had to stop a lesson because so-and-so was crying or because this one would not stop acting out or wouldn’t get off the phone…When you create that classroom community, you’re going to see less and less of those behaviors.” 

Their book contains a wealth of resources to help educators integrate morning conversations into their schools and classrooms. 

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It’s April 2024. Polarization in America is at an all-time high, and another highly contentious election season is fast approaching. Fears about teacher bias and the undue influence they might have over their students has raised suspicions among parents and has led several states to restrict what teachers can discuss with their students — like “divisive concepts” or subject matter that might cause students to feel anguish or discomfort because of their race. In response, many teachers now avoid controversial topics for fear they might be fired or lose their teaching licenses. Some have even quit because the restrictions and the suspicion about their motives has made their already challenging jobs even more difficult.

My guest, Dr. Diana Hess, an educator and researcher who has studied teacher-student interactions, opposes this trend. “I think the job that we have as teachers is to help students understand the political environment in which they live. What are the important current events, what more importantly are the important controversial issues? And I don't think that we can really have a democracy that's going to be sustained without that.” She goes on to say that teachers should not only be permitted to discuss politics and controversial topics with their students, they should be required to do so. “I don't think we can have high quality civic education without current events and controversial issues.”

Hess believes that if concerned parents and policy makers actually spent time in classrooms observing how the vast majority of teachers approach politics and controversies with their students, they’d be pleasantly surprised. “What we know from a lot of empirical evidence,” Hess says, “is that a teacher’s goal…is not to have students adopt their perspective. That is not why people go into teaching…When people go into teaching, they tend to say, ‘I really want to make sure that my students understand what's happening and that my students know enough to form their own views on the political issues of the day,’” 

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When Daniel Buck’s article, “In Defense of the Education Culture Wars,” appeared in my news feed, I thought, Is this guy kidding? Is he seriously arguing that the culture wars are a good thing for schools?  Turns out he was, which made me think, I have to get this guy on my show.

Buck agreed to join me, and what you’ll hear in this conversation is him explaining his thesis, my making sure I understood his argument, and then me offering my reasons for believing the opposite - that culture wars, like most wars, usually do far more harm than good. But then what became apparent, as is often the case when people are at odds, is that each of us ascribed different meanings to “culture war."

By the end of the conversation, after clarifying our definitions, we discovered that we agreed on a lot - that educators, parents, and often students, should be having conversations on matters that impact schools and students - like how and when students should learn about gender and sexual identity or the books and movies they should have access to. These things shouldn’t be swept under the rug just to avoid conflict, but (and this was my argument) nor should the conversations be free-for-all, no holds barred, vitriolic shouting matches where nobody listens, nobody wins, and the best the combatants can say is, “We fought the good fight!” What often happens in culture wars is that trust is lost and anger and suspicion toward teachers rises. Then,  many of them end of quitting, a terrible consequence that couldn't be any more harmful for students since many schools already suffer from severe shortages.

Buck and I ended up agreeing on some key points while disagreeing on others. But as Mahatma Ghandi once said, “Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.”

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Since 2020, nearly 20 states have passed legislation prohibiting public school educators from teaching “divisive concepts” or any content that might cause students to feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress” because of their race or sex. Florida and several other states have also adopted new policies that ban instruction about gender and sexual identity, and teachers who violate these policies can be sued, fired and, in some cases, have their licenses to teach revoked. 

Critics say these laws violate free speech protections, and participants in this episode say they limit opportunities for students to have civil and productive conversations about issues that may, at times, be controversial or unsettling. “It's impossible to teach history in a way that'll make sure nobody's ever feeling uncomfortable,” says history professor Sophia Rosenfeld. “Slavery, for instance, is a fact of American history. If you leave it out of the curriculum, you've misrepresented our past. It's bound to make people feel uncomfortable…It should make people feel uncomfortable.”  Deborah Appleman, a professor of education and former high school teacher, adds, “You can't learn about the Holocaust or learn about slavery without feeling discomfort, guilt, and anguish.”

Libby Snowden, a college senior, offers this perspective: “A lot of the terms used in that legislation tend to be very broad and lead to a chilling effect … where we have teachers who are afraid to bring up certain topics in class because they don't know what counts as divisive or inappropriate for the age group. I think that really speaks to the value of the local community, school boards, parents being involved and really having conversations about what is being taught in classrooms. We have shifting cultural norms right now. It is becoming much more socially acceptable to have gay characters in children's movies, gay characters in books...It's really important to engage with each other about how we are going to handle that in our schools.”

Snowden also believes students must feel comfortable sharing unpopular opinions. “I can think of situations in high school where somebody expressed a viewpoint in class, and even if it wasn't maybe pounced on in the moment, there was chatter in the hallways, there were social media posts, word would get around.  I definitely think it is the responsibility of the teacher to set the expectations and the ground rules.” 

Later, speaking about her current experience as a college students, Snowden says, “I've been really lucky. I've gotten to be involved in an organization that's all about free speech and intellectual diversity on campus. Every week we host events that we bring in largely conservative speakers on an otherwise very liberal-minded campus. It's awesome. People come in, listen to the speaker, and hear what they have to say. We don't get disrupted when we have question and answer. We have respectful questions, and even if they are challenging, they're asked in good faith.” 

Appleman says these kinds of learning experiences must begin when children are young. “If students don't learn how to do it early on, then no wonder they have issues expressing themselves freely and with civility when they're in high school and college. I don't think it's ever too early to teach kids, number one, to speak their mind and two, to not hurt people when they're doing it.”

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According to a recent Washington Post article, homeschooling is the fastest growing form of education in America. As many as 2.7 million students are currently being homeschooled. One of my guests, Heidi Sampson, is a veteran homeschooling parent from Maine and a four-term Republican legislator. She concedes that homeschooling is not for everyone but says, “The overwhelming evidence nationally for homeschooling is the fact that there's an opportunity for students to excel.”

Another guest, Nicole Doyle, a leader of the Georgia Black Home Educators Network in Georgia, says homeschooling is a form of “resistance” to  people who blame Black parents for their children's poor educational performance. Homeschooling is also a way for Black families to ensure their children receive a culturally relevant education, she says.

What makes homeschooling controversial is that fact that the U.S. regulates it less than any other industrialized nation. In many states, homeschooling parents can simply educate as they wish with their children. They are not required to follow a curriculum or to administer academic assessments. As such, they are not accountable for what their children learn. 

This is how it should be, parent rights advocates argue, but some, like Weston Brown who was homeschooled in Texas, has a different perspective. “I absolutely believe that there should be regulation, that there should be oversight...I grew up hearing the phrase ‘the rights of the parents’ over and over and over again, and it wasn't until I was in my early twenties that, for the first time, I heard, ‘What about the rights of the child to a basic education?’” Weston believes his parent’s intentions were good, but he expressed deep concern about the education they provided.  “I learned things like the enslavement of millions of people was necessary for America's growth. I didn't know about of any of the key leaders of the civil rights movement.”

Samantha Field also expressed regret about her homeschooling experience. “My parents didn't know how to teach me any form of basic math beyond basic arithmetic. And once I reached algebra in high school, I was forced to try to teach myself. I was unsuccessful but attributed my inability to do that to being a woman, as I had been taught that women were innately incapable of understanding higher math.”

Heidi, the lawmaker from Maine, empathizes with Weston and Samantha, calling their stories “heart wrenching." She says there should be a way to “mitigate” homeschooling experiences like theirs, but cautions against government overreach.  “The more you regulate, the more you're going to have issues and problems,” she says.

What inspired me most about this conversation is that my guests - each with vastly different experiences and perspectives - listened, empathized, and were eager to learn more from one another.  

At the end of this conversation, Heidi said, “I have a lot of thoughts, a lot of takeaways…I could sit down with each one of you and just listen and just explore ideas…I think I have a pretty good feel of what's going on here in Maine, but to hear the different cultures is exciting…How do we best serve all these different cultures in the United States to homeschool their children to the best of their ability and give those children every opportunity to shoot for the stars?” Weston said, “I love having this conversation…and it could go on for hours.” 

To set the stage for this civil exchange I started the conversation by asking each guest to describe a teacher who had a positive impact on their life. I didn’t include their responses in the episode, but starting with personal stories, as I do in most of these episodes, always brings some warmth and humanity to the conversation.

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Most of us have opinions about transgender people and, perhaps, about the controversial policies affecting transgender students - like ones requiring teachers to notify parents if their students are using names that do not match their birth gender. But few of us have ever had a real, in-depth conversation with a transgender person where we have gotten a chance to hear their personal story or their perspectives on policies affecting students.

This is why I decided to interview Bobbie Glass, a 72-year old transgender woman from Kentucky who has been an educator for most of her career - to hear from someone whose experiences most of us really know next to nothing. No matter your views on the subject, I promise you will learn something new and be moved by Bobbie’s personal story. I suspect you may also reconsider your perspectives on the role educators play with trans students and with the way other students treat those who differ from the norm.

If you enjoyed this episode you might also want to listen to Monica Guzman’s podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-can-we-disagree-better/id1709364674?i=1000633976565) with Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah, and Troy Williams, the head of a LGBTQ rights organization in Utah. They discuss how civil dialogue and empathy led one of America’s most conservative states to pass legislation supporting Utah’s transgender residents.  You can also hear my interview with Monica about the culture wars in education at https://www.schoolconversations.org/episodes/monica-guzman.

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In Part 2 of this story, high school students and a parent discuss their experiences participating in an innovative program called SEND (Student Empathy Network for Diversity) designed by Compton High School teacher, Jason Morgan, to strengthen relationships among students and parents from different parts of Los Angeles.  (Listen to Part 1)

Aaron Butler, a recent graduate from a high school in Compton, describes one of the first SEND activities with people from another community. “My mom and my dad came and we all met up and went on this hike. And it was honestly a beautiful experience going up the mountain and talking to new people from different backgrounds. It was just honestly new to me…You could see everybody getting like their little groups and  talking to other people. And it was honestly an amazing experience.” 

And this is what Catherine Borek, a parent of one of the SEND students (and also a teacher in Compton), said about the hike that Aaron describes and the value of moving together: “The pattern I'm seeing right now is nature-movement, nature-movement. We do things together when we move together, when we're in nature together. There's this sort of awe that comes of that, and it's really hard to not see yourself as part of a Grand Collective. And not just me, me, me. It's all about that community. And that's what I really love about this program- how it inspires this sort of awe of the world.

At the end of this episode, participants offer advice for people who might want to create programs like SEND in their communities.  

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In Part 1 of this story, Jason Morgan, a high school math teacher from Compton, California, describes the innovative program he created called SEND (Student Empathy Network for Diversity) that was designed to strengthen relationships among students and parents in different parts of Los Angeles.  

“I was talking with my neighbor during the height of like the George Floyd, murder,” Mr. Morgan recalls. “And we were talking about how it's gonna be really hard for communities to come together because we don't live with each other…but I thought about how can we bring our youth together in different settings, so that our youth could actually develop this empathy with communities that they normally would not engage with.”

What’s fascinating about this story is how many of the bridging strategies that previous guests on this podcast have described have played a role in Mr. Morgan’s SEND program. Like contact theory that journalist Amanda Ripley talks about where strangers (and even adversaries) spend time with each other on their own turf, often solving problems together. Or, what my guest Peter Coleman talks about in his book about toxic polarization - the critical role that physical movement plays in strengthening relationships and building empathy. 

In Part 2 of this story, students (and a parent) talk about their experiences participating in SEND.  One student, Max, said this about the program: “I think whenever you get the chance to just be with people who think differently, who live differently, do it…I've learned so much just being around people who are different than me…seeing how they live life rather than maybe how I think their life is like…The more you can just be with different people, the better you're gonna understand this world.”

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Racist acts on school campuses are rising fast. Incidents of hate crimes and physical attacks with a weapon nearly doubled between the 2015-16 and 2017-18 school years. In the 2017-18 school year, schools reported nearly 6,000 hate crimes, according to the US Government Accountability Office. These are criminal acts, not what some people refer to as racial micro-aggressions, which by many accounts occur with great regularity in some schools. In this episode, a politically diverse group of guests discuss two provocative questions: 1) What can educators do to prevent racism? and 2) What should they do when it happens? Controversy arises because they touch on hot-button issues like Critical Race Theory (i.e., teaching about systemic racism, which has been banned in many states) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs that have come under fire recently because, according to some, they promote racism rather than reduce it. A conservative parent rights advocate, a high school student committed to educational equity, a progressive university educator, and the leader of young republicans in Texas share their own experiences with racism before taking up the controversial questions about how to prevent and respond to it.

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In part 2 of this episode, host Ken Futernick continues his conversation with author Stephanie Krauss about Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and her new book, Whole Child, Whole Life. They explore the growing pushback from conservative policy organizations, like the American Enterprise Institute, and from parent rights advocates like Stephanie McWilliams who says, “Social Emotional Learning is the latest craze that is taking over our education across our country. It is a program that schools are adopting to shift the school culture and educate what they call the whole child…They assume the role of parents essentially by using brainwashing techniques and role playing to teach children how to think and feel about life.”Krauss concedes that teachers are not always adequately prepared to promote Social Emotional Learning. “In my own children's lives, even though I have been involved nationally in social emotional learning for years, I have been pretty disappointed with some of the SEL I programs that they've experienced,” she says. Futernick says the fact that SEL is not always practiced well can be true of any educational practice - teaching children how to read or to do mathematics. But, he says, this alone is not a reason to construct an indictment of teachers or of the subjects they are attempting to teach.In trying to get at the source of the resistance to SEL, Krauss is reminded of the book, Switch, whose authors argue that lack of clarity about an idea often leads to confusion. That confusion can then lead to contempt. Krauss speculates that confusion about SEL could be the cause of the contempt that Stephanie McWilliams and others have for this educational approach. Futernick raises the possibility of a more sinister explanation - that misinformation and confusion about SEL may not be due to poor messaging from educators, but instead of the work of what journalist Amanda Ripley calls “conflict entrepreneurs” - people who manufacture crises in local communities, who deliberately instill fear and pit groups against one another for political or financial gain.Krauss does not dismiss this more disturbing possibility. “[I]f I was a bad guy and I was looking at a long game, a multi-generational strategy, one of the best ways to take down and break down the democracy or a neighborhood or nation would be to really mess up its kids,” she says. “And in this moment, our kids need social and emotional support more than they ever have before. And if we allow confusion and contempt to get in the way of providing those supports and removing those supports from the places where they spend the most of their time, we are engaging in life-threatening practices. And so before we do that, it's worth the risk and the discomfort of coming together to figure out what we actually mean when we talk about social emotional development.”

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