Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1278320
vote, he says, and are eager to be active participants in the electoral process — although sometimes that's a bit daunting for early teens. " I t e l l t h e m , ' I n f o u r years, you're going to be a b l e t o v o t e ,' a n d t h e i r eyes get so wide," Humble says. "It's pretty cool to see them taking responsibility and tackling big issues on their own." W h i l e m u c h o f t h e attention is placed on the c a n d i d a t e s , t h e i s s u e s a r e r e a l l y w h a t m o v e young people to get pas- s i o n a t e a b o u t p o l i t i c s , according to U.S. government teacher Andrew Shrock. The Simi Valley High School teacher says that while students get caught up in the horse race of the presidential election, critical issues like climate change are far more compelling than some old politicians. " When we first started talking about the election, it surprised me that a lot of my students didn't know any of the names of the candidates," says Shrock, a member of Simi Educators Association. For Tann er 's students, som e of th e most controversial truths are also famil- iar ones. For example, when the 22-year female history teacher says, "Politics are a man's w orl d ," th e out- rage her students express u p o n l e a r n i n g t h a t t h e Unit ed Stat es has n e ver had a female president is palpable. Tanner explores why this disparity exists, reading with her students a piece by cognitive lin- g u i s t G e o rg e L a k o f f o n gend er ro l e s and p o liti- cal ideology. "It always surprises me how heated the conversa- tion becomes when we talk about why w e h av en' t h a d a w om a n pre si d ent ," says Tanner. TEACH, DON'T PREACH Teaching about politics, government and elections has always been tricky, but the current political climate has made it even more important for these educators to discuss the issues without including their own opinions. Humble says he tries to approach discussions Andrew Shrock Resources for Supporting Digital Literacy W A D I N G T H R O U G H O N L I N E misinformation, fake news and out- right propaganda is difficult for most adults, even more so for young peo- ple. Here are some helpful resources to support and improve the digital literacy skills needed to navigate the 21st century political landscape. Teaching Tolerance Teaching Tolerance's Digital Lit- eracy Framework offers seven key areas in which students need support developing digital and civic literacy skills, including identifying and verifying reliable information, privacy and security. tolerance.org/frameworks/ digital-literacy Common Sense Education Common Sense has a robust digital citizenship curriculum free for download, including grade-specific interactive lessons and activities in topics includ- ing digital footprint and identity, cyberbullying, and media literacy. commonsense.org/education/ digital-citizenship Stanford History Education Group Stanford has a variety of free lesson plans to help develop the skills needed to navigate the current digital landscape, including their Civic Online Reasoning curriculum, which focuses on evaluating the trustworthiness of digital content. sheg.stanford.edu Teaching Tolerance Giving students the tools to navigate news online is key. 51 A U G U S T / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 0