One of our three 2019 teacher fellows is High School TeacherEleanor Greene of pacoima, california. Host Eleanor Greene has taught at bert corona high school. Tell us a little bit more about your school and your students. Eleanor i am really fortunate to be able to teach a population that is almost entirely firstgeneration american. Most of my students are emergent bilinguals coming into their english language skills. I get to work with students who want to learn. Emigrant children love learning. They see education as their way out. Their parents are super invested in them. I get to be the guide to teach them about those connections to American History and World History and to their government and help them see their place within this country that sometimes doesnt always see them as part of it. Host you are moving to a New High School in the San Fernando Valley this fall. Typically, what have you taught in the past . Eleanor when i started, i was the only history teacher. I ran the whole gamut, World History, u. S. History and government. This year, i will focus on government. Host when you say focus on government, what are the topics that class covers . Eleanor i am fortunate to get to teach a full year of government. We get to go over the branches, functions and all of the different levels. Then, i get time to talk about media and bias and their place in it. We take time to learn about journalism and media studies. To me, those are a huge part of government. We get to write things about how to vote and they get to research. We get to see not just how the governments function but how we participate in the functioning of that government. Host you already talked about one of the challenges kind of that already exists. You are teaching mainly first generation american kids. What are some of the other challenges in getting the concepts of the constitution, government, and washington across to High School Students . Eleanor in general, history is hard to convince people that it is not just a thing that happened before but it is a thing that is actively happening now. History feels like something in the distant past that we dont get a say in. I hope to make those connections for my students that these are issues we are still reckoning with. So who cares that john adams tried to limit free speech . Well, it is important to our conversation today about what is hate speech and what should be allowed and part of the discussion online. It takes making those connections for them that they may not make themselves. Host what current political issues or figures are the most talked about among your students . Eleanor donald trump is person number one. They will always come in and say miss, did you hear, did you see, can you believe and then we get to talk about the historical significance and those relationships and we get to put things into context. We could2016 debate, go back and watch the 1960 president ial debate and look at how cordial they were to each other. Nixon and kennedy were so nice to each other. We could trace where those things shift. Reagan jokes about not holding his opponents youth and inexperience against him and laughs with him. We can trace where those divides start to happen, where things become more partisan. It is not just about saying, heres something crazy that just happened, but how did we get here . How can we figure out and navigate a way back . Host whether it is President Trump or other current political issues, or issues in political history, how hard is it for you as a teacher to keep your views in check and listen to what they have to say . Eleanor the most important thing that i see my role as is teaching them how to think independently. And that starts with research. How can you conduct research to verify things you find online . We like to think as adults that young people are geniuses with technology. These digital natives. They know exactly what they are doing. They know the shortcuts. Have any reasoning skills about what they see online. The teachers, the adults, parents dont think we can teach our Kids Technology skills. We have to. They dont know innately how to verify if something is true or not that they see online. They see conspiracies on youtube and take it as gospel truth. At the core of teaching them how to identify what is true and what is not, we can apply those to politics as well. It is the same thing on the political system. Lets go back to the tape. Cspan has an important place in that. It is not just the sound bite. Lets watch the hearing. Die, theyents and became obsessed with the Brett Kavanaugh and i, they became assessed with the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. I did not expect that. They got to do these mock congressional hearings. My students and i became watching the full coverage, and we watched of the Senate Judiciary committee and we watched the committee hearings. We watched our senators engaging in those backandforths and they could see what it was like. And learn about the politics behind everybody and what they were saying. Host if you could bring those students to washington and take them to one place and teach them a lesson, what do you think that would be in the nations capital, whether it is on capitol hill or elsewhere . Eleanor i would like to take them off of capitol hill. A lot of student groups dont get into southeast d. C. Getting to go somewhere like the Frederick Douglass house in anacostia, it is somewhere that people might not think of but it has this rich, multicultural history that our students need to learn. Especially my students. They see history as something old white people did. And to show them they have a place in that history as well, that is what i would like to take them to see Frederick Douglas house and teach them about what he did. Host you are one of our three teacher fellows this summer. Why did you apply in the first place . Eleanor i felt like i had a unique but becoming less unique perspective teaching english learners, teaching students who are immigrants. The face of america is changing and i have been on the front lines with those students. And so i wanted to bring my perspective of teaching a type of kid who has been left behind and developing my own practice as well. I have gotten to do that. I feel like after this month, i am going to be a much better teacher for my students. Host you are here with your other teacher fellows and other teachers coming in for a teacher conference, developing curriculum for middle and High School Students. What are some interesting ideas or practices you have heard from your colleagues . Eleanor zach and maureen have been prolific in their time here. They have really taken on the task of doing state history. Which is something a lot of middle School Teachers need. It is easier to find the National Stuff online, but finding something specific about north dakota, thats harder. They have been digging through cspans library, finding the city tours and getting the fun stories that you would not expect. That the Mormon Church in salt lake city, they built that and were able to build that because they ended polygamy. They werent able to get federal funding to help them until they ended polygamy. These little stories that you think its really small to a place but it has these big political ramifications. Beginning to see how we can find ourselves within a more local context and make those larger connections. Host do you think you have a better understanding of a policy or process of the government that you didnt before that you can relate to your kids a little easier now . Eleanor i think that it has been a real delight to have, going on in the background, the gaveltogavel coverage. All day, i have gotten to have that on a screen next to me. You get to see those little moments that get missed. You get to see Little Things that our congresspeople do to connect back home that they dont really get covered. They are always out there, sharing a picture of someone who is important and local. We think of them as National Figures maybe because our media is so nationalized. But making those connections to all of those Little Things that our Congress People do not connect us to them. I think that is something i have been able to see and experience more often. Host you mentioned the Frederick Douglass house in anacostia. What other things did you do when you were in washington . Eleanor they do jazz and sangria at the park and the National Sculpture garden. That has been a real treat. I have gotten five dollar tickets to nats games. It has really been taking the time to be in a place for so long. We have been here for a month. It is not a two day whirlwind around d. C. But taking the time to spread out in different places. Start spreading out beyond that core boundary that most of us think of when we picture d. C. It has been a real delight to get to live in a place and feel like i know where i am going and i am not just hanging around. Host as you head back to california and a New High School, is there a followup process to what you have learned here . Eleanor i will be moving to a much bigger high school and i will actually have a full History Department to get to work with, not just me and a few other colleagues. I am really excited to get to share this process. How to make resources, how to dive into the cspan library. 250,000 hours of it. I would love to be able to bring that practice to my fellow teachers. It is not just history teachers. There is content for english teachers and environmental studies teachers. There is a lot we can pull from that resource. Host 2019 cspan teacher fellow, eleanor green from california, thank you so much. Eleanor thank you. I appreciate it. Announcer for more information about cspans education resources, including lesson plans and our teacher fellowship program, go to cspan. Org classroom. Weeknights this month, we are featuring book tv program showcasing what is available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight, the theme is politics. Featured writers include journalist robbie sauve, who reports on the rise of millennial activism in america. Watch that tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Also, we are showing you American History tv programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight, a recent Purdue University conference called remaking american political history. That begins at 8 00 eastern on cspan3. President trump holds a Campaign Rally in manchester, New Hampshire on thursday. Watch live coverage tomorrow on cspan, cspan. Org, or listen live on the cspan radio app. Campaign 2020. Watch our live coverage of the president ial candidates on the campaign trail, and make up your own mind. Cspans campaign 2020, your unfiltered view of politics. Now a discussion on disinformation campaigns and potential ways to combat them. Cnn anchor kate baldwin moderates the discussion along with the Carnegie Corporation of new york and the university of washington. Jane good afternoon. Impressive turnout for an august day. Congratulations to all of you. I always say the Wilson Center has the brightest audiences, and you are bright enough to know that this will be a fabulous panel, a fabulous conversation on disinformation, the first of several we are planning