The Kids are Scared

By Lindsay Adams

I’m not sure if you’ve been inside an American classroom lately, but I have. The kids are scared. This isn’t hyperbole, though of course I wish it was. This is real, something I see everyday, something they openly talk about.

It’s not new for kids to be scared. Honestly, being frightened during your childhood seems to be a time honored tradition. My grandparents had the fear of poverty and loss, after having been through both the Great Depression and World War II. The boomers had the cold war and the threat of nuclear annihilation, which honestly answers a lot of questions you might have about the boomers. For millennial’s, like me, we feared the hole in the ozone layer, climate collapse, and terror attacks. Which, also answers a lot of questions about us.

But this generation. This generation is different. Their fears feel deeper seeded, more ingrained in their personalities. Real questions I’ve been asked range from “will ICE come to the school for me?” and “If I’m in the bathroom and there’s a shooter, what do I do?” School is no longer somewhere they consider “safe”. I’m not quite sure students see the world as safe anymore. I think that they fear deeply because they see everything. And no, I’m not talking about them being more perceptive. I’m talking about social media.

Tomorrow, I will walk into my classroom and at least 70% of my students will have watched the killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti a Minnesota protester. Likely, they will have seen the shooting from multiple different angles. They have probably watched it not once, or even twice, but a dozen times. Maybe more.

And this isn’t even their first rodeo.

They watched the murder of Renee Good, they watched the the murder of Charlie Kirk. They’ve probably watched a hundred videos of protesters being beaten, or tear gassed, or yelled at. They’ve watched footage of school shootings, police brutality, ICE raids — you name it, and they’ve seen it. And those are just the videos that aren’t AI generated. Because students are watching that slop, too.

So, how do I walk into school tomorrow and teach, I kid you not, about John Adams and the Alien and Sedition Acts and ALSO, prepare them for an active shooter drill (FML)? How do I, as an 8th grade teacher, show up to work and teach?

I think I don’t.

Hear me out. Yes, we will get to our guided notes on the Alien and Sedition Acts. And, yes, of course I will still teach content. But I’m not sure that’s the most important thing to do tomorrow. Because teaching is about so much more than content. No matter what people say, teaching is political. Knowledge is power, and sometimes knowledge doesn’t come from content.

It comes from open discussions.

Tomorrow, I will ask my students how many of them saw the video out of Minnesota. My guess is that 70% (or more) will raise their hands. Now, I’m not here to give them an opinion on what happened (though I don’t think it’s explicitly wrong for teachers to have educated, thoughtful opinions…more on that in another post). I simply want to acknowledge the horror of it. Because the reality is, students should not be watching that video. But they will. And they have.

Next, I’ll acknowledge that what they’ve seen must have been distressing, and encourage them to swipe away from videos like that in the future. Because, unfortunately, a lot of them will not have sought the video out. Like the drug pushers on the street DARE warned us about, social media pushes videos to the youth without their consent. This makes it difficult for them to turn away, so I like to remind them to get rid of it quickly to help train the algorithm.

Then, we will talk about misinformation. I believe, powerfully, that reminding students that their clicks, likes, shares, and comments are all commodified. Someone is making money off their rage/anger/fear/emotions. And let me tell you, middle schoolers have a LOT of emotions. I remind them that if something is making them feel big things, it’s probably propaganda. They should leave the social media site, and find a reputable news site and inform themselves of the facts. Typically, I direct them to NPR.

Finally, we’ll talk about AI. Anytime something big like this happens in the country, a rash of AI generated videos shoot out of the ether like a virus looking to infect the nation to a particular point of view. Honestly, students are pretty good at spotting fakes, better than you and me my fellow millennial’s. However, it’s worth reminding them that social media is the wild west of the internet. There are seemingly no rules.

This entire conversation will probably take 5-6 minutes of my class time, that’s it. It’s not a lecture or a finger wagging, it’s a frank conversation with an adult they trust, without fear of consequences. I’m not their parent. I’m not going to ground them for being on TikTok. I’m not going to rage at them for watching something inappropriate. I’m a moderator, a teacher. And media literacy is a skill that must be honed. Five minutes to acknowledge what they’ve seen and hopefully provide them with a skill is worth the time and effort.

And in this day and age, the kids are going to need an arsenal of tools to make sense of the world. Even if they are struggling to use those tools. But that’s a conversation for another day. Stay hopeful educators.

“To the world we dream about, and the one we live in now”

–Anais Mitchell