Nourishing Notes: October Entry

Although the presidential election is the most prominent race to be decided on November 5, it is just one political event that impacts our daily lives. For most of us, the person who legislates on the city council, fills a seat on the local school board, directs public instruction, determines if or when the roads we commute on every day will be repaired, or prosecutes on behalf of the state will have a more direct and immediate impact on our lives. Yet, the bombast and hyperbole of a presidential election excites our emotions and can also create sharp divisions within a community. Our aim is to avoid this at Bush.  

We will offer students the opportunity to explore ideas, engage in healthy debate, and practice active listening with their peers. Ultimately, it is up to our students, even those who will not vote in November, to determine which platform and candidate to support. Our role is to help students analyze data and information, to ask questions, to test assumptions, and, most importantly, to leave room for open inquiry and civil discourse. As teachers, advisors, and mentors, we provide guidance to students at a critical time in their social and intellectual development; we teach them to ask the right questions rather than guiding them to find the right answers. Most importantly, we will provide a predictable, structured, safe environment for students to pursue these topics. In this way, we produce well-formed citizens as opposed to well-filled ones. 

 

We invite perspectives with the goal of nurturing an open mind. Our faculty will uphold the school’s norms around the election, including not advocating for candidates or political parties in the presence of students or via any Bush-linked social media and/or websites. While it is not always possible, we strive to be politically agnostic in front of students, giving them the freedom and safety to explore ideas. In addition, we will be working on and practicing what it means to sit with unease when someone expresses a viewpoint or perspective with which you do not agree. This practice recognizes that individuals are not defined as narrowly as their political beliefs, that our community is stronger when we are asked to look at an idea or perspective differently, and that this exercise better prepares students for college and life, where disagreements are inevitable and foster intellectual growth. 

 

We encourage you to engage your children similarly around the presidential election – probe, inquire, and most importantly listen, rather than telling. This election will most likely exacerbate the divisions we are all experiencing in our country right now, creating a high-stakes game of us versus them, in which everyone loses.

 

While fierce disagreement, polarization, and personal attacks have been normalized in discussions, we will work with students to offer a more nuanced, civil, inclusive approach to discourse.