By Mary Niederberger
mary@pittsburghcurrent.com
A conventional presidential election year provides teachers and students with real-life opportunities to learn democracy in action. It’s a chance to watch the foundations of government play out as they have for more than two centuries.
But in this election year, where fiction became fact and facts were presented as fiction, in which students started out learning about the pillars of U.S. democracy then later watched political leaders attempt to chip away at them, what lessons were learned and how much confusion still exists?
In the weeks surrounding the election, one student felt so strongly that his peers needed to understand the electoral college that he created a miniature version at their high school. A Black student worried about violence in the streets as Trump supporters challenged the election results. And, a high school government teacher, said it was difficult to appear to remain impartial as she had to explain to students that it was not part of the U.S. democratic process to threaten to overturn a valid election.