On election day, I volunteered at the polling place in my neighborhood. On my walk home at about 8:00 pm, it was already clear that Trump would win the election. I was so depressed I didn’t listen to any news for the rest of the week, partly because I didn’t want to hear people blaming and shaming and finding fault. I gave myself through the weekend to mourn the loss of possibility. Now it’s a new week and time for me to wake up and face reality.
We – my country – have elected a man whose campaign was based entirely on division and hate, who has no moral compass, who has been convicted of major crimes, both personal and financial, whose name-calling and vitriol reveal an insecure tyrant, who has threatened to use the military against our own citizens, who vows to imprison those who have disagreed with him,
who has spread blatant lies about immigrants, encouraging violence and hatred, who has shown disrespect for military veterans and their families, and who, when he lost the last election, incited a violent insurrection at the US capital. Yet, I don’t know one person, personally or professionally, who would want such a leader for themselves or as a role model of leadership for the children and youth in their lives.
So how did this happen? How did a nation of immigrants come to hate immigrants? In a country where most adults have a basic education, how is it that half the people who voted chose this person? In what ways has the country so failed so many people that even he seems better than what we have? The highest level of income inequality in our history has left millions of people out of the opportunity structure. Our systems of education have been woefully inadequate in preparing voters to be thoughtful, informed citizens. Misinformation and disinformation pervade social media, sources from which millions of people get their “news.”
As educators at all levels, I think we should take these results as a call to action. Beginning in pre-school (every child should have access to high-quality pre-school), we need to teach children how to think, how to decipher fact from fiction, develop informed opinions and observations and be able to share them with others with civility and mutual respect. Ideally, every classroom would have maximum diversity of teachers and students based on all aspects of identity – sex, age, race/ethnicity, family background, socioeconomic status, physical and cognitive ability, etc. For all children, youth, and young adults, learning and development would be experienced in communities in which all voices were equally valued, where listening was as important as talking, where the norm was compromise in the interest of the common good. Can you imagine a government made up of people who had the skill and propensity to work together in harmony and cooperation?
If we have hope in a democracy in which everyone has a place and in which everyone can thrive, we need to get busy in schools across the country. As W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in 1903, We have no right to sit silently by while the inevitable seeds are sown for a harvest of disaster to our children…