As the anniversary of the January 6, 2020 riot at the U.S. Capitol nears the media are reporting that teachers are planning lessons that reflect the left’s version of what took place on that day.
“What students are learning about the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 may depend on where they live,” the Associated Press (AP) reported, advancing the false narrative that President Donald Trump directed his supporters to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
In fact, Trump told those who attended an earlier rally at the White House to “peacefully and patriotically” let their voices be heard.
Justin Voldman, a history teacher at a school in suburban Boston, said his students would spend the day “journaling” about what happened and discuss “the fragility of democracy.”
He said it is “fair” to draw parallels between January 6 and the “rise of fascism” under Adolph Hitler.
“I feel really strongly that this needs to be talked about,” Voldman said.
The AP reported that Liz Wagner, who teaches eighth and ninth grade social studies in a Des Moines, Iowa, suburb, said school officials sent an email telling teachers to “be careful” how they reported the event:
Some students questioned Wagner last year when she referred to what happened as an insurrection. She responded by having them read the dictionary definition for the word. This year, she will probably show students videos of the protest and ask them to write about what the footage shows.
“This is kind of what I have to do to ensure that I’m not upsetting anybody,” Wagner said. “Last year I was on the front line of the COVID war, trying to dodge COVID and now I’m on the front line of the culture war, and I don’t want to be there.”
The AP report continued:
Teachers now are left to decide how — or whether — to instruct their students about the events that sit at the heart of the country’s division. And the lessons sometimes vary based on whether they are in a red state or a blue state.
The biggest fear for Paula Davis, a middle school special education teacher in a rural central Indiana district, is that the discussion about what happened could be used by teachers with a political agenda to indoctrinate students. She won’t discuss Jan. 6 in her classroom; her focus is math and English.
“I think it’s extremely important that any teacher that is addressing that topic does so from an unbiased perspective,” Davis, a regional chapter chair for Moms for Liberty, a group whose members have protested mask and vaccine mandates and critical race theory, said.
“If it cannot be done without bias, then it should not be done,” Davis said.
Follow Penny Starr on Twitter
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.