With every Instagram post, news blog, or video report, it becomes increasingly difficult for younger generations to build political ideologies on their own. While high school classrooms are meant to be politically neutral, learning and talking about controversial topics is a necessary step for students to take in order to build their political identities.
“We’re very measured in what we say – you can’t dodge politics entirely,” economics teacher Thomas Saam said. “If I’m teaching economics and never talk about how markets fail and the government will have to come in sometimes to remedy them with taxes or subsidies, then I’m not doing my job.”
While social studies classes are specifically meant to remain politically neutral, that doesn’t mean politics are not discussed. Teaching social studies without discussing any politics is like rain without water.
“The idea is that, as you become adults, you’re going to have to think about these things yourself,” social studies department chairperson Michael Roethler said. “We want people to be able to explore controversial issues and make their own opinions about them.”
District 99 acknowledges the importance of these topics by including controversial issues into the official school curriculum and teaching social studies teachers to discuss current events. Classes – from Personal Economics to AP Government to Political Science – hold debates that require students to research and discuss politics, not based on opinions, but based on data.
“If there’s any area to point out current events and contested issues it has to be in social studies. It’s a firm part of the curriculum,” Saam said. “We welcome all voices, but when it comes to objective things, you have data to show them without much debate.”
When discussing controversial topics in school, it’s important to be as factual as possible. Many of the practices done in social studies classrooms are in effort to help students develop effective research techniques and learn about their own political identity. Discovering a plethora of reliable, unbiased news sources is very important for students to learn the most objective truth they can.
“Any source that I’m reading from, I’m going to be skeptical. I think getting your information from numerous sources is healthy,” Saam said. “When the tariffs were announced, I was reading the right-centered WallStreet Journal and reading on left-centered Bloomberg. If you sift through the two articles you can see there are points that are not debatable.”
Teaching students at DGN how to effectively take in news and politics helps brew healthy discussions about world issues. Students taking in the world in their own educated manner, not just through a textbook, builds a school of politically mature students.
“Being able to talk about politics fosters a better learning environment ,which will create students that are comfortable about important topics that not everyone can talk about,” senior Stellan Hammond said. “As someone going into history education, that would be my goal as a teacher.”
As is the case with most high school classes, social studies courses strive to teach more than factoids and power points. These classes teach teenagers how to become adults. Developing critical thinking and civil discussion skills are abilities that will last someone many years past their high school career.
“Our goal is to teach kids how to think, not what to think,” Roethler said.
