\n<\/p>\n
For some teens, Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist who was assassinated while speaking on a college campus this week, was an inspiration and a hero.<\/p>\n
For other students who might be sitting right next to them in class\u2014including some girls, students of color, and those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender\u2014Kirk espoused abhorrent views.<\/p>\n
Both visions of Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a student group with close ties to President Donald Trump, dominated social media this week, alongside videos of his violent death and speculation about who might have killed him. (On Sept. 12, authorities announced an arrest in connection with the case.)<\/p>\n
There were conspiracy theories, misinformation, posts urging conservatives to take-out prominent liberal figures in retaliation and other posts cheering his murder.<\/p>\n
That social media maelstrom, which emerges after nearly every breaking news event these days, worried Michelle Pearson when she got a news alert about Kirk on Sept. 10, shortly after her middle school social studies students had left for the day.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, teachers themselves have been disciplined\u2014or even fired\u2014for their own behavior on social media following Kirk\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, \u2018holy moly, my students have just gone home,\u2019 they\u2019re on their cellphones and they\u2019re not going to have any context for any of this,\u201d said Pearson, a teacher in the Adams 12 school district, in Thornton, Colo.<\/p>\n
In the wake of events like Kirk\u2019s assassination, teachers can help students process their complex feelings and make sense of what they\u2019re seeing on their TikTok and Instagram feeds, said Peter Adams, the senior vice president of research and design at the News Literacy Project, a nonprofit organization.<\/p>\n
For instance, students may see extreme social media posts calling for conservatives to respond to Kirk\u2019s murder by committing violent acts against those on the left, or posts showing showing liberals describing Kirk\u2019s killing as justified. But it\u2019s sometimes difficult to tell who published the content and why.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know who people are online,\u201d Adams said. \u201cIf you see somebody post a call for an \u2018eye for an eye\u2019, for example, you know they could be an American who is airing a reprehensible viewpoint, or they could be a foreign influence agent trying to deepen division.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, Adams said that teachers should explain to students that there are a lot of unknowns as an event like Kirk\u2019s assassination unfolds. People pushing a particular narrative online\u2014such as the internet sleuths who mistakenly identified a transgender woman as the shooter\u2014don\u2019t have the facts and may have an agenda they\u2019re trying to push.<\/p>\n
\u201cIdeological actors, trolls, propagandists, people who are looking to divide Americans, to push misinformation, are all going to jump into the void of that curiosity gap,\u201d Adams said, \u201cwhere an event has happened, and everyone wants more details than are available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Students should instead be encouraged to follow standards-based news organizations, even though they\u2019re \u201cgoing to move slower than you know your Twitter feed or your BlueSky feed or your TikTok feed, for good reason,\u201d Adams said. <\/p>\n
This was \u201cobviously a deeply tragic event, but also emblematic of how breaking news events play out now,\u201d Adams added.<\/p>\n
Pearson addressed the shooting with her social studies class the next day. She paired a discussion of Kirk\u2019s death with a planned history lesson about the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and infused both discussions with an emphasis on empathy.<\/p>\n
Pearson explained the national mourning and antipathy towards Arab Americans that followed the terrorist attacks nearly a quarter century ago. Then she asked students about recent news events. <\/p>\n
As she expected, they were quick to bring up Kirk\u2019s killing, which many of them had watched on social video platforms such as TikTok.<\/p>\n
Students talked about their shock, but also about media bias. Why were national news outlets spending so much time on this event and so little on a shooting at Evergreen High School in Colorado, located about an hour away from their school?<\/p>\n
Pearson used their questions as an opportunity to talk about media bias. She reminded her students how to check whether a particular outlet has a point of view and is reporting accurate information through strategies such as \u201clateral reading,\u201d which involves looking at multiple news sources to fact-check particular claims.<\/p>\n
And she challenged students to think about how their own posts about a topic like Kirk\u2019s death might reflect skills like critical thinking and empathy. Is what they are posting accurate and respectful to people with whom they might disagree?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t often have that chance to really push kids on that next step of digital literacy \u2014 and this provided that opportunity for it, to be honest,\u201d Pearson said.<\/p>\n
Teachers need to model that behavior themselves, Pearson added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI lead by example on anything I post,\u201d Pearson said. <\/p>\n
When she posts something on social media she thinks to herself: \u201cI better be able to say this in front of my family and be OK with it, because they raised me with a set of moral values and a set of community values. If I can\u2019t say this in front of them, then I\u2019m not posting it for other people.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the wake of Kirk\u2019s shooting, there were numerous reported instances of teachers being fired or disciplined for social media posts justifying his death. (A number of teacher organizations, however, denounced the killing and called for civility in online posts.) <\/p>\n
Fenner Parker, a North Carolina high school student who serves as the national communications director for the High School Republican National Federation, said teachers should not be sharing their personal views on the tragedy, either online or in the classroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have that name \u2018teacher\u2019 for a reason,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re teaching the next generation and if you\u2019re sitting there celebrating the death of someone, what are you teaching students?\u201d<\/p>\n
But Fenner, 17, added that teachers shouldn\u2019t shy away from talking about Kirk in class.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis country needs a lot of healing, students need a lot of healing, and that\u2019s going to come through talking to one another and sharing in the pain,\u201d he said. \u201cI truly discourage teachers from shutting down those conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s understandable that many teachers wouldn\u2019t want to wade into this politically volatile topic by bringing it up in class, said Ty Harris, the director of opportunity and achievement for Virginia Beach City schools in Virginia and a former social studies teacher.<\/p>\n
But educators who avoid addressing the tragedy miss a chance help students apply their media literacy skills to a developing news story and to demonstrate how to have a respectful civic discourse\u2014both in person and onlinedivisive .<\/p>\n
Educators \u201cwant to engage in the conversation, I think, in order to help, but at the same time, there\u2019s a real fear of saying anything that\u2019s going to get us in trouble,\u201d said Harris, who spoke for himself as an individual, not for his school district.<\/p>\n
But his view is that avoiding talking to students about aspects of the story is a \u201clost opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf our goal is to develop individuals who are going to contribute to society, the ability to have a conversation with someone who disagrees with you is a pretty important skill to have,\u201d said Harris, a 2025 Education Week Leader to Learn From. \u201cIt\u2019s something that you only get through practice. It\u2019s not something that comes inherently.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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