Hope Will Never Be Silent
In our interconnected world, it can feel impossible to escape disturbing news of tragedies, political turmoil, and social injustices. I find myself overwhelmed by the despair and powerlessness I feel as I process grim headline after headline, story after story. In the face of seemingly insurmountable global challenges, I often wonder how I can make a meaningful difference to help heal the world and prevent violence in the future. Although it would offer temporary relief to disengage and disconnect from the news, I also can’t get away from the feeling that, in these moments, turning my back is the exact wrong thing to do. I keep coming back to some critical questions: Why is it important to stay checked in, even when I can and want to check out? In the face of overwhelming sorrow, terror, and anger, how do I remain hopeful? How can I continue to take care of myself - to put on my oxygen mask first - without abandoning my responsibility as a human being to care for others within my universe of obligation? Below are a few strategies that may help keep us engaged and hopeful amidst a deluge of hard to process news.
Turn It off but Stay Committed
Taking care of oneself emotionally and psychologically is important. The constant stream of violent news, increasingly accompanied by images and even live videos, risks desensitizing us to the violence with which none of us should have to live. While it can be helpful to temporarily turn off the news and social media after a tragedy, we must not close our eyes to the ever-present threat of danger more generally. The varied elements of our own identities, our own experiences, and our proximity to violence all impact our reactions to news. Most aspects of my identity afford me the privilege to check out and even turn off most threats. Though I am pained by the constant state of turmoil the world is in, I am generally not at-risk of experiencing these threats myself—this is my reality. However, when your identity makes you a target of imminent threats to your physical safety and wellbeing, your reality is much scarier. For these individuals and communities, there is no option to turn off or tune out. As teachers, we must create space for our students to care for themselves and take a break when needed - providing moments in our classroom when they can turn it off. Journaling is an excellent strategy to help slow down our thinking and allow us to take a deep breath, especially in an environment of heightened anxiety and tension. Take a break, but stay engaged.
Trust Students to Grapple with Complex Issues
Facing History & Ourselves trains and supports teachers in integrating social-emotional learning into their curricula and in creating reflective classroom spaces where students and teachers co-construct learning about current and controversial topics. Young people need support to process and discuss events, to understand root historical causes, and collaboration with others to activate their own sense of agency to effect positive change in the world. Throughout the school year, teachers work hard to nurture an inclusive classroom space, build community among the students, and provide structure for them to talk about current events. Trust students to grapple with the complex issues in the world, and support them in doing so as you strive to cultivate thoughtful, informed, and compassionate global citizens.
Combat Confirmation Bias: Ground Discussions in Text
Social media and the 24-hour news cycle provide many opportunities for the dissemination of misinformation as people are eager to gain insight after an incident of violence. Confirmation bias is "our subconscious tendency to see and interpret information and other evidence in ways that affirm our existing beliefs, ideas, expectations, and/or hypotheses." As you generate discussions about current events with your students, encourage them to ground their conversations in text-based evidence. The diversity of your students impacts the pedagogical decisions you make about which texts and strategies you employ. You may need to use numerous strategies to bring different viewpoints into your classrooms through videos, texts, and interviews from multiple perspectives. This helps students combat their own confirmation bias, consider alternate points of view, and engage in a rich discussion, such as a Socratic Seminar, rooted in text.
Focus on Individuals: Learn Their Stories
In the documentary Reporter, journalist Nicholas Kristof discusses the phenomenon of "psychic numbing" - our tendency as human beings to care less about something as the number of victims increases. As we are confronted on a weekly, even daily, basis by stories of murder and terrorism, the many victims blend together and we lose our ability to connect with their individual humanity. Saying their names, seeing their pictures, meeting their families - all of these help us focus on the singularity of each life lost. Each of these people has an identity and a story. As do each of us. Share your story, and learn the stories of those around you. Reach out to someone you might otherwise not speak to - a colleague, a neighbor, a stranger. Getting to know people, finding our similarities and learning from our differences, builds the foundational relationships of a community that help keep us proximate to each person's humanity.
Also consider: as we struggle to confront histories of systemic and institutional racism, of egregious inequity, and of religious intolerance worldwide, it is also crucial to remember that perpetrators of violence, while acting within broader systems and histories, are also individuals who have unique identities and stories. Resist the urge to generalize about groups of people, and seek out stories that present a counternarrative to the stereotypes we are all subject to.
Finally, Stay Hopeful
I continue to witness inspiring teachers around the world working hard to learn how to better support their students to confront bigotry and hatred, to interrupt the cycles of inequity and violence — violence that is not inevitable. The community Facing History has built provides a brave space to unpack current events and navigate how to grapple with them in the classroom.
These educators embody the words of the late Congressman John Lewis: “That’s what the struggle has been all about, to bring these competing forces together, and create a sense of community, to create this sense of family, that out of the good – the good is already there. The love is there.” We will all have moments, as will our students, when we lose sight of our ability to solve the myriad problems facing our world. We cannot abandon our responsibility to be an active part of, and to bring our students into what Congressman Lewis called the Beloved Community.
So, spend some time taking care of yourself when faced with tragedy. Put your oxygen mask on first, and breathe deeply. And then, help your students put on theirs. Be inspired by, and share with them, the simple acts of courage and kindness that surround us every day:.. Challenge them to find their own stories of participation, and support them to engage actively, hopefully, to put a stop to violence and bigotry, at home and around the world. Harvey Milk, the late California politician and LGBTQIA+ rights pioneer, reminds us: "Hope will never be silent."
