With student activism on the rise and so much at stake on Nov. 3, this year\u2019s presidential election offers an opportunity of a lifetime for history and government teachers in high schools across California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But many teachers appear to view the election as a red-hot stove, and are standing back or approaching it gingerly, with oven mitts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see so much or hear a lot about teachers taking on the presidential election\u201d, said Judy Pace, a professor of teacher education at the University of San Francisco who is writing a book on teaching controversial issues. \u201cThere are tons of resources out there, but there\u2019s a disconnect between messages from teacher educators about the importance of the presidential election and what teachers feel equipped to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump has been a polarizing president, and so it is hardly surprising that the same political divisions that have roiled gatherings of friends and families have seeped down to high schools, putting some teachers on edge. The worry extends even to \u201cprogressive bubbles\u201d like San Francisco, where nearly all voters are liberal, Pace said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teachers worry they may be accused of taking sides if they bring up the president\u2019s threats to challenge mail-in ballots or if they compare Trump with presidents who didn\u2019t ridicule their opponents or attack the press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seniors in high school who matured during his presidency \u201chave no other point of reference,\u201d said Devin Hess, program coordinator for the UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project, who is co-leading \u201cDiscord and Crisis: the 2020 Election,\u201d a\u00a0<\/strong>three-part webinar<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for high school teachers on how to approach the presidential election.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Teachers are \u201chandling layer of upon layer of challenges,\u201d Hess said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of those is contending with students immersed in a \u201csea of disinformation,\u201d much of it from social media, said Joel Breakstone, who directs the Stanford History Education Group. The group created Civic Online Reasoning<\/a>, a curriculum whose tools guide students to judge the reliability of online news sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did not anticipate the quantity of material online deteriorating,\u201d he said. \u201cThe problematic info on racial justice, voter suppression, the coronavirus imperils the health of our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specialists in history and civics education say they\u2019re sympathetic with what teachers are up against. Many are feeling that they\u2019re already jammed with work, and the election would be an overload, said Mark Gomez, history\/social science curriculum specialist at the Salinas Union High School District.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Taylor, who teaches U.S. History to juniors at Liberty High School in Brentwood, feels an unease in the faculty lounge, where politics is not discussed. \u201cYou simply now just talk about the weather and whether or not you\u2019re rooting for the Dodgers. That\u2019s basically it, because you don\u2019t want to just turn anything into an argument,\u201d he said.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Taylor, who grew up in Brentwood, has taught at Liberty High for 22 years. Once a Republican stronghold, it now\u2019s the Mason-Dixon line of party politics and is trending Democratic. Taylor knows his neighbors and subtly feels the pressure to steer clear of controversial topics. The school administration has warned teachers to avoid discussing their own politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every year Taylor does a unit on media literacy, using PBS clips, on how to spot fake or hyper-partisan news. He has a media bias diagram that points to Fox News and Breitbart. He expected to get blowback but hasn\u2019t \u2014 \u201cI think because of the way I presented it as objective and analytical,\u201d he said. Still, he worries. One of his students hung a Trump flag behind him during a class on Zoom, and a student in a colleague\u2019s class wanted to hang a white supremacist flag but \u201cit got nipped in the bud.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taylor said he steers clear of issues he knows are important for students to discuss, like racial inequality, Trump\u2019s position on immigration and Biden\u2019s proposal for Medicare for all. \u201cWe\u2019re all walking on eggshells,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like a biology teacher teaching evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obstacles of distance learning<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Limitations imposed by distance learning have added to teachers\u2019 difficulties, handicapping those who have wanted to use the formats of debate and in-depth discussions they used pre-Covid and forcing some teachers to scale back their plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some reasons are practical. In many districts, the instructional day is shorter; typical 90-minute periods are now an hour; after warmup exercises, that leaves 45 minutes. For U.S. History, especially AP sections, it\u2019s already hard to keep pace to get to World War II on schedule. Current events can seem like a diversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And teachers universally agree: It\u2019s been harder to engage students remotely, to know what they\u2019re thinking behind their often blank screens and to build trust for students to be open and candid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis year has become a lot more challenging because we don\u2019t have face-to-face discussions. Instead of Socratic seminars where students agree or disagree, we kind of talk more about the facts,\u201d said Amber Dodd, who teaches AVID, a program that includes critical reasoning, note-taking and other skills needed for college, to 10th-graders in Salinas.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

AVID is flexible enough to accommodate current events. Dodd spent two weeks covering the Census and a week on the Supreme Court after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but she has not brought up the Black Lives Matter movement or issues that could lead to conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parents listening in out of sight?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Dodd strives to establish her classroom as \u201ca safe zone where students can speak freely\u201d without being judged or criticized by others. But that\u2019s not possible with distance learning, where the classroom extends to students\u2019 homes, where parents and others may be listening. All the teachers EdSource spoke with mentioned this concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely something I\u2019m thinking about,\u201d Dodd said. \u201cI\u2019m being a lot more cautious of how things are phrased, just so that it\u2019s clear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other teachers said they\u2019re concerned a parent might take a comment out of context and complain to the principal or a school board member.<\/p>\n\n\n\n