What Kids Taught ME about Election 2016

"What do we say to our kids about this historic election?"

"How do we model compassion and respect when so many people are choosing to disregard those values?"

"What can we teach students about what it means to be American?"

Questions like thse have been popping up amidst a neverending stream of commentary ranging from hopeful and happy to fearful and distraught and I've seen some really stellar replies so far.  As is the case with any polarizing event, both sides have valid observations and I feel that it is important to honor the raw emotions being felt by people across our country.  I also realize that parents and teachers now have an epic opportunity to show young people what compassion and respect look like while embodying the values that have always sustained our country.

In my experience, the best way to support young people is to listen to them – fully and without judgment.  In honor of that belief, I decided that I wanted to hear what some young people were thinking about the election instead of trying to decide what to tell them.

On Monday before the election, the middle school girls that I work with taught me a valuable lesson about perspective while also showing me that no one is really immune to politics regardless of their age or background.  They were intrigued to find out who I was voting for and told me all about how the election was being discussed in school and among their peers - they even said their tween peers were utilizing the political SnapChat filters and that really stuck with me.  I was fascinated and wanted to know more about their perspective of the election, so I asked them some questions and really listened to their answers.  We had a great discussion about respect, compassion, information literacy and the electoral process.  From them, I learned that context is important and that we can all choose to look at the outcome as an end or as a “fresh start”.

Today, I learned another profound lesson from my 5 year old about looking at the bigger picture.   While we were waiting for his bus, he was asking me about the election.  When I told him that Donald Trump won, he asked if that meant he won Pennsylvania or the whole election.  I told him that it meant that Trump would be our next President and he asked me if Trump would be the President of the world.  When I explained that no one was in charge of the whole world, he looked at me very matter-of-factly and told me that God* was in charge of the whole world.

I smiled at his perspective, hugged him and told him to make it a great day.  Then, I went in the house and thought about sharing his insight with my friends and family.  At first I hesitated because, even though I keep my Facebook friends up to date on just about everything Ian has ever done, I usually try to stay away from religion and politics.

After scrolling through my feed and seeing half of my friends and loved ones celebrating and the other half feeling sad and scared, I thought it couldn’t hurt to share my little story and I’m glad I did because dozens of people from both sides of the political divide hit the “like” and “love” buttons.  Their overwhelming reaction told me that there is a choice bigger than politics that can bring us all together.

The good news is that we all get to make that important choice every day – we can all choose to practice love and we can all listen to the children to remember what really matters.  I have spent the last few years of my career working to find ways to bring love, hope, and kindness back to the forefront in education and I stand firm in my belief that a shift is needed now more than ever. 

We can all choose hope and love and that is my message for everyone on this day after Election Day 2016 because I don’t want anyone to feel that their fate rests in the hands of any other individual. 

Thanks to my students and my son and the related reminders about choosing love, my day shifted, my spirits lifted, and I began to see words of wisdom from many young people, including Kid President.  It is no secret that I’m Kid President’s biggest fan, but his post from today was more profound than 95% of the things adults were sharing on my feed.  It simply said, “Grown ups. Your presence is vital today in the lives of children. Show them what love looks like.”  

Ian, the girls, and Kid President are just three small examples of the big love and wisdom that is inherent in our children and I hope you can see it too.  I still contend that the best thing we can do is listen to them, but if you feel that you have to tell them something, tell them the same things you should be telling them every day – just add a hashtag to get their attention...

#chooselove

#havehope

#bekind

#havefaith

#begrateful

#bethechange

What else would you add to this list?  Leave me a comment below and together we can make sure that our children won’t have a future founded on the difficult feelings that so many people are experiencing right now.

* I don't know if blog posts are supposed to have afterwords or postscripts, but I have a few more thoughts to share about God after hearing the reactions to my post yesterday and exploring my desire to give energy to those reactions.  I hesitated before sharing the story with my loved ones and I hesitated again when I wrote this blog because I've become hypervigilant about respecting everyone's beliefs.  Then I realized that I don't want to hesitate about sharing my beliefs because they can be a needed light in the darkness and I want to empower kids to understand that they can be that light and that they can confidently share their beliefs as long as they remain respectful and compassionate.  

The most interesting part about Ian's confident assertion about God is that he isn’t being raised in the context of a formal religion.  He has been to church, but we have friends and loved ones of many differenty religions and my general explanation is that love is my religion.  I was legitimately inspired by his perspective and found it to be really meaningful because he came up with it on his own.  I often talk to him about God in terms of love and kindness and I’ve also talked to him about the election in those same terms – especially because his Mommy and Daddy have very different political beliefs but we love and respect each other anyway.  The fact that he connected those dots, gives me a lot of hope and faith in the future - especially after I realized that references to God and unity were common threads the three big speeches from Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and President Obama today.  

After reflecting on it for a while, I believe that my experiences with the girls on Monday and with Ian this morning are really good illustrations of why strong, positive values have a place in education.  We don’t have to refer to those values as God, but avoiding them out of fear seems to be perpetuating a lot of problems.  I truly believe in the separation of church and state, but I don’t believe in the separation of values and education and I think that has happened as secular schools have stepped away from character development, social and emotional learning, and other programs that emphasize ethics, morals, and values because they might be interpreted as religious or as “touchy feely” at the very least. 

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I can explain the election or anything about our world to my son or my students without focusing pretty heavily on concepts that are generally taught within most major religions.  The good news is that those concepts are actually taught within ALL major religions.  Love, kindness, respect, hope, faith, compassion, and service are values at the heart of spirituality and it doesn’t matter if we refer to that spirituality as The Universe, God, Energy, Source, Buddha, your Higher Self, Allah, the Floaty Thing, Jesus, the Transparent Eyeball, Krishna, or your imaginary friend.  What does matter is whether or not we embody those concepts in a way that will make sure our world is the kind of place we want for our children.

Someone recently argued that it is okay to bring politics to our students in schools because it teaches them the tenants of democracy and is a great way to show them how to have an open mind while looking at things from various angles.  Similarly, I am compelled to argue that it is okay to bring the basic tenants of spirituality into the fold because they can also be used to show students how to have an open mind and look at things from various angles.

Finding ways to embody powerful principles outside of formal religion is a cornerstone of my life's work, so if you are a teacher or a parent who feels that fostering values and connections is essential, please sign up for my newsletter and stay tuned for more details about my upcoming book, HOPE for Our Public Schools.