Category: Current Events

Moderating the Internet

Who regulates online speech? Is there a digital public square?

Since the end of the election, there’s been a lot of discussion about social media’s impact on the outcome, from the circulation of so-called “fake news” to Donald Trump’s use of Twitter.

Who decides what language and imagery is permitted on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest? The platforms are, after all, owned and maintained by private companies.

Here are some thought-provoking articles about how they establish and enforce their use policies. (Note that the language and situations described are crude). Students will be provoked to think hard about free speech and who gets to regulate it.

Tracking Hate Crimes

Unfortunately, since the election there’s been an increase in both incidents of hate crimes and, therefore, the need to track them. Several groups and publications are doing this in formats that can be useful for educators in various ways.

A general note with these resources: the content is intense. Assume that there will be offensive language and disturbing scenarios. They may potentially be more useful as background material for educators, or, with some screening, as sources of scenarios to use in Forum Theatre or other similar exercises.

Jezebel has a running hate crime and racist incident tracker, updated weekly and open to input.

Each week we will update this post with information about the most recent hate crimes, racist incidents and harassment reported around the country under Donald Trump’s presidency. If you have an incident to report, please email tips@jezebel.com and include in the subject line: “Hate Crime Tracking.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center Hatewatch has updates dating to November and a separate form, #ReportHate, for reporting an incident. Notable are the analyses of patterns, in particular that “nearly 40 percent of all incidents occurred in educational…settings.”

The SPLC collected reports from news articles, social media, and direct submissions from the #ReportHate intake page. The SPLC made efforts to verify each report but many included in the count remain anecdotal.

While the total number of incidents has risen, the trend line points to a steady drop-off. Around 65 percent of the incidents collected occurred in the first three days following the election.

Other patterns pointed out previously are holding too, notably that anti-immigrant incidents remain the top type of harassment reported and that nearly 40 percent of all incidents occurred in educational (K-12 schools and university/college) settings.

 

2016 Education News Roundup

The Washington Post has teacher/blogger Larry Ferlazzo’s 2016 best/worst ed news of the year roundup in a really easy format to read.

One of the year’s highlights:

“Efforts to expand ethnic studies classes in schools picked-up steam, with California passing a law to create a model curriculum for these courses and new research showing major student academic gains as a result of participating in them.”

And a lowlight:

“The election of Donald Trump sparked a “hate spike” targeting immigrants and students of various ethnic, religious and racial groups in schools.  Even where harassment was not present, teachers reported fear and uncertainty creating high-levels of stress among students and families across the country, though some critics inaccurately accused educators of “fueling student anxieties.”“

Efforts to expand ethnic studies classes in schools picked-up steam, with… new research showing major student academic gains as a result of participating

Here’s where you can find the Post’s version.

Here’s Larry Ferlazzo’s site itself, a great landing page of online resources for educators focused on ELL, ESL, and EFL.

Mountain View High’s Frank Navarro Back in the Classroom

The Mercury News is reporting a resolution to the suspension of Frank Navarro, a teacher at Mountain View High School in Mountain View, CA.

While Navarro is happy to be back in the classroom–and his students are happy to have him back–there’s some discrepancy about why he was removed in the first place.

As The Mercury News reports,

In a letter to parents sent Monday, [Principle] Harding stated that “freedom of expression and academic discourse are the cornerstones of our schools” and also said that “the teacher’s paid leave was not for teaching a lesson comparing Trump to Hitler.” The letter said the district received a complaint and needed to investigate “to ensure the emotional safety of all of our students.”

But Navarro said that last week Principal Dave Grissom and Associate Superintendent Eric Goddard said they were placing him on leave for discussing the election. Only on Monday, Navarro said, did Harding tell him the issue was “maintaining a safe environment for kids.”

“It’s really curious they didn’t discuss a safe environment on Thursday,” Navarro said, when he was ordered to remain off campus until Wednesday while the district conducted an investigation.

It seems clear that outside pressure had an impact. Harding seems taken aback at how quickly the story, and pushback, went global. We here are encouraged, especially given that coverage began with the school’s student newspaper.

The Day After

Wednesday, 11/9, was most definitely a school day. Below is an initial roundup of pieces talking about how educators and their students began to face the future together.

Dan Stone, a social studies teacher in Oakland, CA, wrote his students a letter. Then, they wrote back. He tells the story, including excerpts from these letters, in The Washington Post.

“I want you to know that your teachers love and care about each and every one of you and that the fact that we cannot protect you from these things and this election makes me feel devastated and weak.”

Jezebel posted a great survey of teachers’ stories about addressing election results, from kindergarten through grad programs.

“When my students came into the classroom, some said they didn’t want to talk about the election; some said they just wanted to hang out and talk; some asked if the class could play exquisite corpse, a surrealist writing game (which felt somehow appropriate at such a surreal moment in time); others looked like they wanted to crawl under the table. I suggested that we tell stories about fierce women in our lives as a way of honoring the historic nature of the campaign and Hillary Clinton’s place in it.”

And The Los Angeles Times has a quick piece about local students and teachers coping, with an emphasis on Latinx and trans students.

“He could have taken the conciliatory road that many Trump opponents were traveling Wednesday morning. But he said he wanted his students to voice their feelings and understand they had a role to play in the nation’s democracy.”

The article can be viewed in Spanish here.

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