Classrooms are obviously not insulated from what is going on outside school walls.
Last week, voters across the country rewrote the political map, giving Democrats control of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as making major inroads into governorships and state legislatures. As the new class of lawmakers prepares to take office in January, it’s worth taking stock of the political status quo they will be inheriting.
Today’s post features commentaries from teachers sharing how this political status quo has been affecting their classes.
We can only hope that change begins to impact the day-to-day lives of students and their families and create more positive climates inside and outside the school’s four walls.
‘Fire and ICE’
Manuel Rustin is a high school history teacher in Pasadena, Calif., enjoying his 23rd year in the classroom:
The present political climate is trying its best to disassemble the connectedness of America’s classrooms, one of the few remaining places where people still come together and share a physical space designed for both personal and interpersonal growth and well-being.
My particular classroom has been affected by the one-two punch of authoritarian immigration policy and the looming climate crisis, each having tested the resolve of our school community. Toss in the attacks on the so-called “woke” curriculum that we engage with here in California public schools, and one might expect students to lose themselves within the toxic currents of our political climate. However, rest assured. My students are enduring and holding tight to their emerging understanding of the critical importance of community and connection.
One juxtaposition often tossed about in our city is fire and ICE. The 2025 Eaton fire in Los Angeles County that killed 19 people devastated our school and displaced several hundred students and dozens of faculty members from their homes.
Months later, masked federal agents descended on our region and began snatching valued members of our community, including the parent of one of my brightest students whose senior year suddenly became an unimaginable nightmare. Occasional lockdowns at schools in our district due to nearby ICE activity, multiple citywide student-led walkouts to protest immigration policy, and ongoing displacement from the fires have become a seemingly ordinary presence in our learning environment. In the midst of it all, students in my classroom appear to be more united in their beliefs and political frustrations than ever. In a way, the national division and political calamities have seemed to unify them.
Whereas students in my American government classes used to express a moderately left-leaning but notably diverse set of politics, during these past two years, I have witnessed a profound movement and coming-together of students toward what many would label progressive or leftist politics. My students, who have endured the trauma of seeing their homes on fire, are steadfast in their belief in safe, stable, and affordable housing for all.
My students, whose very family members have been swept away by masked agents, are steadfast in their resolve to abolish ICE and shut down the detention centers. My students, whose households are increasingly strained by the high cost of living, are incensed that corporations and a select few individuals are reaching record levels of wealth. I can feel the collective frustration among them, the collective sense of being in this fight for their future together.
As recently as the 2024 presidential election season, I had plenty of students who seemed to like what Donald Trump was offering or who enjoyed being contrarians and joking with their peers about his podcast appearances and debate clips. Today, there are no jokes. No contrarians. No piqued interest. No “whataboutisms.” So how is the present political climate affecting my classroom? It is galvanizing my students. I do hope the adults are paying attention, particularly the ones who claim that young people don’t care about anything besides TikTok and silly trends.
Watch the ‘Thermostat’
Jacob Goodwin is a 6th grade teacher, the former New Hampshire history teacher of the year, and the author of Teach Like a Community Organizer:
The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, two impeachments, and bruising battles over seats on the Supreme Court—we have all lived a lesson in civics these past 10 years. At the same time, the institutions and procedures of our republic feel like they are a great distance from our classrooms. That could be why as a teacher, part of my job has become helping students to metabolize “this moment in U.S. history.”
Reflecting on this, I find myself diverging from what we, as teachers, are so often asked to be, explainers. Simply put, there is too much to explain and too many terrible events in the news. The “teacher as explainer” quickly finds himself in the center of the learning, a space where a calm reassuring voice can soothe and comfort students, an important position in times of distress.
But constant distress cannot be calmed by one voice alone, and reassurances from well meaning adults wear thin despite our good intentions. That’s why I have opted to let classroom life take its course. As we work on projects, I listen for what students have to say about the work and the conversations that naturally bubble up. These small-group and one-on-one conversations often allow kids to talk about life on their own terms.
From these small-group and one-on-one conversations, we develop the habit of hearing each other, of knowing each other, and of building more trust./////////////You can’t have meaningful dialogue about the heavy topics or the hot issues all the time.
Instead, I’ve learned that you have to think of the classroom as having a thermostat. As the teacher, I try to have my hand on the thermostat to try to figure out when we need to “turn up the heat” and have a hard conversation or “turn down the heat” because the issues we’re having are becoming detrimental to the class community.
It’s easy to read about education and think that “good teachers” are constantly having tough conversations. That’s a myth that we need to dispel. That’s a recipe for exhaustion, it is self-defeating, and it isn’t practical. Every community has peaks and valleys when it comes to climate—and we, as teachers, have to have a hand on the thermostat to help the students to learn about themselves and one another. That’s how we all learn to coexist. Otherwise, the heat will cause us to burn out, and that’s no model for school health.
I didn’t learn this right away. Instead, at first, I thought I needed to have a formal lesson that addressed the hard topics of the day. Then events involving violence—both political violence and gun-related to schools—kept happening. Sandy Hook. Pulse. Charlottesville. Parkland. Tree of Life. Minneapolis. So many broken hearts and lives. I didn’t want to go numb to the pain—and I kept thinking of the students who would share the classroom together with me. I needed to build the conditions for their own agency, their own community that could, I hoped, one day help move us beyond this period of grief.
It’s difficult to imagine moving beyond grief when you’re in it. It is even more difficult when personal grief is magnified by mass anxiety. It’s that kind of mixture, along with the doom loop of social media that led me to read my students more and the news less. In looking to my students, it helped us all to escape the doom loop while honoring the sincere concerns of children—giving room for students to have developmentally appropriate conversations and to also not be weighed down by the burdens of the adult world.
Listening to our students through small groups and one-on-one conversations can surface real issues—the things that matter to our students. These issues can then be the driving force for larger conversations and student-driven learning. This is the core work of teaching like a community organizer, which to me, moves us from being reactive to “adult events” to being responsive to student needs and interests.
Teaching like a community organizer has been my response to the need for a responsive civic education. At its core is a trust in people: in students, teachers, parents, and community members. By listening to one another, cultivating long-term relationships, we can start to grow the capacity to take on what matters most to us—rather than what is imposed on us from outside (or above).
Yes, we should talk about the heavy topics. Yes, we should widen students’ points of view through learning about a wide variety of topics. And, yes, we can do both while placing student interests and the idea of community learning at the core of what we do as a classroom.
With a watchful eye on the classroom “thermostat” and an empathic ear to how students are relating to the world around them, we, the teachers, can make a difference building a durable civic ethic.
Thanks to Manuel and Jacob for contributing their thoughts.
Responses today answered this question:
How is the present political climate affecting your classroom and, if it is in a negative way, how are you trying to mitigate its effects?
Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.
You can also contact me on X at @Larryferlazzo or on Bluesky at @larryferlazzo.bsky.social
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