Purpose and Hope During Election Season

A Letter from Gabe Burnstein, Head of School 

If you swing by a seventh or eighth grader at the CRS Fair in late October, ask them about the swing state they have been researching in social studies. You can even ask them to share their prediction for that state’s outcome because they are becoming experts on the 2024 electoral map thanks to the work of their teacher, Tessa Steinert Evoy. Outside her classroom, you’ll see the posters that teams of eighth graders created with key non-partisan details about their state. They can tell you how many electoral votes are at stake, the demographic trends, important issues to the state, and key counties to track on election night. And, in Tessa’s classroom, they are always taught to look for signs of bias as they identify accurate sources of information and separate them from clickbait.

Tessa prepares our seventh and eighth graders to have a developmentally appropriate understanding of the election, but more importantly, she also inspires and empowers them to be informed, empathic, and engaged citizens for the rest of their lives.

At the other end of the developmental spectrum, our PreK/K teachers, Ayan Osman and Vanessa Phifer, have big plans to set up their classroom as a voting precinct so our four and five-year-olds can learn about the democratic process by… engaging in the democratic process themselves! At CRS, students learn by doing, and our youngest learners will vote on the issues that matter most to them, like which stuffed animal will serve as the class mascot? Which book will our next guest reader read to us? And which dessert will Chef Christian serve on Friday to the entire school? (Now that’s political power!) In the process, our youngest students will learn that different perspectives can co-exist in a healthy community, and every vote should be counted.

Ayan and Vanessa’s work prepares our youngest students to have a developmentally appropriate understanding that just because you have the right to vote doesn’t mean that you always get the outcome you want. But you always have an opportunity to be caring and generous when you win and selfless and kind when you lose. Like their big buddies, our PreK/K students are inspired and empowered to be informed, empathic, and engaged citizens for the rest of their lives.

In every CRS classroom this fall between PreK/K and eighth grade, we will find lessons created with great intentionality by teachers who allow students to make real-world connections that are at their level. You won’t see reactive lessons where we are chasing daily headlines. You will see the deliberate work of teaching students how to think instead of what to think.

This curriculum wasn’t created overnight. Like our students, our world-class faculty has been hard at work preparing for their own group project. At closing faculty meetings in June, we all considered a central question: What do our students, at each developmental stage, need from us as we navigate a presidential election in an extremely polarized country?

Then this August, we welcomed Martha Haakmat and Kelly Bird to lead a workshop entitled, Building Care, Community, and Curricula for the Election Season. We worked to do what we do every year, not just in an election year: create classroom spaces that foster open inquiry, curriculum to inspire deep engagement, a diversity of ideas, and standards of instruction that minimize political and partisan tilt.

For many adults, talking about Election Day can feel stressful and that date on the calendar can feel like a finish line. But none of our students will be voting on November 5th. At CRS, we choose to use the presidential election as an opportunity to teach our values. We choose to teach the election to make learning relevant and meaningful.

Our mission demands that “our graduates know themselves, understand others, and shape the future of our diverse world with confidence and compassion.” Like learning itself, that charge never has a finish line.

All year long, our students will embody “the pursuit of academic excellence and the joy of childhood.” And it is in their future, their dreams, beating hearts, and limitless potential where we can always find purpose and hope.

In partnership,
Gabe

Charles River School

6 Old Meadow Road
PO Box 339
Dover, Massachusetts 02030
TEL 508-785-0068
FAX 508-785-8290

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Charles River School is a PreKindergarten through Grade 8 independent school that honors the pursuit of academic excellence and the joy of childhood. We nurture each child by igniting curiosity, encouraging creativity, and cultivating intellectual engagement. Our graduates know themselves, understand others, and shape the future of our diverse world with confidence and compassion.

Charles River School admits students of any race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic origin in administration of its educational or admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.

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