A letter to teachers: Finding the right words to describe the insurrection
This article was originally composed as an email for the Journalism Education Association listserv. JEA is a scholastic journalism organization, of which I am a member.
Thanks for sharing everyone! And thanks for sharing your students’ editorial, Ellen [Austin].
I’m happy to share this curated list of resources for teaching about the insurrection, and how to facilitate conversations with students about difficult subject matter in general. I hope it’s helpful for everyone, including our non-journalism colleagues. One of the trickier parts of this situation is knowing what words to use when describing the events at the capitol last week, so I’ve included some resources for that as well.
I can’t presume to know how everyone feels right now (I definitely feel like I’ve run out of fingers for the dike!). Nor do I understand the context of your community and the pressures of your teaching assignment. But I do know how it feels to experience intense pressure from the community — and even fellow teachers who should know better — to soften our stories, change coverage, and not hold community leaders accountable for their actions. I have personally experienced intimidation from parents, teachers, and students over the years when I broached topics like white privilege in class (and this in a so-called liberal city in California).
Not everything can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James Baldwin
I’ve witnessed the slow motion hatred of journalists swell (My journalism students were asked if they were “lying pigs like CNN” while at the National High School Journalism Convention in Indianapolis in 2016, for example) The nooses displayed by domestic terrorists outside the capitol last week were made of camera and audio cables taken from broadcast journalists (some of their other equipment was destroyed). The events of last week were a long time coming and predictable — I even wrote about it four years ago.
Among others, the main questions I raised with students this week were:
- What role do each of us play in what happened?
- How have each of us, in our own way, enabled/dismissed/excused behaviors similar to those displayed by the insurrectionists last week?
- How does the language we use to describe actions, historical events, and people change their meaning, diminish their accuracy, or dehumanize?
- What is our role (journalists and educators) to clarify, correct, and seek truth, rather than just report raw facts? (thanks to Logan Aimone for his eloquent inspiration on that one)
NPR reporter Sam Sanders’ opinion story does a great job exploring some of these questions, and even addresses the pressures of objectivity for journalists — it’s a refreshing and long overdue take on what led to the violence last week.
What I love about the Aquila editorial is the references to their school’s own code of ethics. It makes me wonder if we hold adults and politicians to the same standards as we do our students? Would teachers lose their jobs or students be suspended or expelled if we cheated, lied, intimidated, threatened or killed? What lessons are we really teaching our young people when we don’t adhere to our own ethical guidelines?
My public school teaching contract (in California) includes a clause requiring me to defend the U.S. constitution. In my mind, that’s the ultimate rationale I need to facilitate these important conversations in class, and defend the work my students strive to do. As I discussed with my staff this week, simply asking the right questions and starting conversations about the issues surrounding last week’s events makes it safe for others to do so — they may be unable or unwilling to do so on their own.
As James Baldwin said, “Not everything can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Teachers and students need to use accurate definitions as we record history unfolding before us, and seek the truth for our audiences and ourselves.
I’m thankful for all of you and the inspiring work you do. Be safe.
You can read JEA’s official statement about the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
