When I first applied to begin my in-service teacher training, I was hopeful.  I was hopeful because I knew I would be receiving superb training from a master teacher.  I was hopeful because I felt I had finally found my calling.  But mostly, I was hopeful because I felt I would be stepping into a role where I could make a difference in the lives of inner-city children just like me.
​
I was born and raised in (South Central) Los Angeles to Mexican immigrants who, like so many before them, had immigrated to the United States in pursuit of their American Dream.  Every day since I can remember they have tirelessly worked their fingers to the bone fueled with the hope that their children would one day go to college and have opportunities that they could only dream of. 

For my teaching residency I was placed in a neighborhood adjacent to where I grew up.  It is a community no different than the one I grew up in and one I knew very well because of its proximity to my childhood home.  It was a community notorious for its underperforming schools, poverty, and high crime rate.  But I knew better.  I knew that its residents were much more than the statistics that defined them to the outside world.  The residents were people like my parents and neighbors.  It was a community of immigrants who daily strived for a better tomorrow despite great dangers and lack of opportunities.  These were not the Mexican immigrants Mr. Trump had so infamously alluded to at the beginning of his campaign.   

As the era of a Trump presidency begins, educators are compelled to ask the following questions: What will be the role of education in this new era? How might education reshape the ideologies that currently define our nation’s politics? What role might education play in bridging the contentious divide between different political subgroups? In attempting to formulate answers to these questions, I believe it is helpful and important to distinguish between two types of intellectuals: traditional intellectuals and organic intellectuals, a distinction originally highlighted by Antonio Gramsci (1971). In this essay, I will draw upon Gramsci’s cultural theories to argue that, if we collectively aspire for education to play a prominent role in reshaping our nation’s cultural discourse in this new era, we must be mindful of how ideological, hegemonic forces manipulate individuals (including intellectuals) into consenting to their own exploitation.

​Children’s Emotional Experiences
 
"I didn't mean to vote for that bad man!  I made a mistake!" (A., Age 6)
"We don't say bad words, right? Why is he saying bad words." (E., Age 4)
"I will miss my friends. My mom says we can't live here anymore." (I., Age 6)
 
The days immediately following the November 7, 2016, presidential election brought a range of emotions into our homes, schools, and communities—some that children could identify and others that were more complex.  
 
In many communities, as children observed adult behavior related to the election, they felt the tension in the months and weeks before, and in the days that followed. They felt, and still feel, confusion and, often, fear. How we respond to these emotions further shapes how children feel and develop an understanding of complex issues.
 
I spoke to educators across the country, especially childhood educators in Somerville, Cambridge, and Boston, Massachusetts, and the stories were the same. Children were asked by peers if they were born here. Girls were called "fat pigs" and were told, "Now we can say that." Children were told, "Go back to your country!" from across the cafeteria, playground, or campus. High school students in our communities were snap chatting photos of their suitcases as a symbol of what might come. 

In this essay, I discuss how educators in the Somerville Public Schools helped children to process the election. First, I discuss ways the city and school district supported its most vulnerable families, followed by how two early childhood teachers utilized one of their most important tools, the curriculum, to explore bravery and leadership with their students. Finally, I offer resources for educators to support their conversations with children.

​If past is indeed prologue, we as a society have found ourselves at yet another juncture that marks a watershed moment in our history, one that rings all too familiar. Trump’s election is reminiscent of other dark periods out of which we’ve emerged after protracted struggles for justice. While the “we” to whom I refer captures society-at-large, the “we” to whom I write specifically in this essay are the educators among us. We possess varying levels of schema for how to process this turn of events and how to take action; however, we are still in the midst of a grieving process the likes of which many have not experienced in our lifetimes. We are mourning the absence of what was supposed to be, and wondering how we arrived at this place where a Trump presidency was not only possible but also, probable. We had already begun erecting literal and figurative structures aligned with a Clinton victory, shrugging off the unthinkable, the unspeakable—a Trump upset. Even for those of us who had faced the stark reality of a Trump victory in the months leading up to the election, November 9th marked the beginning of a journey shrouded in fear and uncertainty. 

Political Context of School Choice
For many in the education community, the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States has sounded a deafening alarm over the future of public education. And with the announcement of Elizabeth DeVos, a staunch advocate of the school choice movement and the architect of Detroit’s charter school system, as the future Secretary of Education, there is a palpable fear among educators that her yet-to-be-proposed policies will not only accelerate the decline of the nation’s urban public schools, but also exasperate longstanding inequities in education from school funding to the “achievement” gap. Although it is incumbent upon the education community––practitioners, administrators and researchers­­––to resist any measure that promotes inequality, it would be naïve to hold the incoming administration exclusively accountable for failed reform policies in public, and in particular in urban, education. 

Introduction
 A triptych is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided into three sections, or three carved panels that are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. The middle panel is typically the largest and it is flanked by two smaller related works, although there are triptychs of equal-sized panels.
 
We chose the concept of a triptych of poems to showcase the epistemological coexistence of connectedness and separateness. The concept of intersectionality unites us, while simultaneously renders us distinct. The triptych is connected, yet separate, much like our reactions to the election.  
 
Through the three poems below we highlight the panels of before, immediately after, and the future of a Trump Presidency. Each of the three authors and educators embody unique forms of Otherness, yet our fear, trepidation, and concern unify us.

​This conversation was born out of the concerns of several graduate students over classroom environments at Rutgers University after the election. We found that instructors did not know what was appropriate to engage with in their classes with both undergraduates and graduate students; this uncertainty was bred not only by instructors’ doubts about the validity of their own subjectivities and the responsibility of stoking an already vitriolic atmosphere, but by troubling silences and campaigns of suppression coming from institutional administrations. How could instructors be tactful in broaching the issue of Donald Trump’s election, knowing that some students had voted for him, and others, by consequence, feared for their lives? How could we advocate for the importance of such material in our curricula, when politics was implicitly seen as off-topic, or expressly discouraged by higher-ups? 

‘One in five American households do not have a single member in the labor force’
This was a statistic heralded by President elect Donald Trump, in a speech during the election campaign, to illustrate the apparently huge number of unemployed Americans, and thus, to expose the perilous state of the American economy. (Appelbaum, 2016)

However, if considered critically, this is also statistic that is incredibly misleading.  
​
Trump may be correct that fewer Americans, as a percentage of the total population, are engaged in traditional employment today as compared to previous decades. However, the statistic above does not serve as proof that more Americans are unemployed, and indeed, is more indicative of the fact that 20% of American households are headed by retirees. In this statistic, Trump is tacitly classifying retirees, 16-17 year olds and stay-at-home moms as being within the ranks of the unemployed. Although this classification may be technically accurate, it is misleading information with respect to informing the public about the general state of the economy. 

I wrote this poem in the middle of the night, late on Nov 8th, after coming home from what was supposed to be our victory party at the Hillary Clinton campaign office on Solano Ave, where I had worked many long hours over the past weeks...

As a woman, I weep
As a child of immigrants, I weep
As a daughter of Earth, I weep
As a weaver of words, I weep
As a fighter for peace, I weep
As a lover of truth, I weep
As a believer in hope, I weep
As a friend of all lovers, I weep
As an American, I weep
As a human, I weep

Author Note

​Jude Berman, EdD, is a freelance writer/editor (specializing in psychology and education) who paints and writes fiction in her spare time. As of Nov 9, 2016, she knows she no longer has the luxury to be anything short of fully involved in our political world. Email her at judeberman@yahoo.com

100 Years and Running
Before the start of this past fall semester, our campus, a large northern California community college, celebrated its 100th anniversary. One of the lead programs featured a panel of current faculty, staff, and students, in addition to a former Japanese American student who attended the college during World War II. As a student, she experienced our government’s efforts to round up Japanese Americans for imprisonment in internment camps. She shared her experiences during that time and provided pictures from the campus, which offered some insight into how the college responded, or failed to respond, to such a deplorable time in our country’s history.
​
Without ill regard, her powerful retelling of her student experiences provided an opportunity for the panelists and campus as a whole to reflect and process how our histories impact our current institutional practices and students. Her story offered an opportunity for us to contextualize our current role as a public institution of education. Instead, however, the panel and campus at large responded minimally to this conversation; it may have been startling or inspiring in the moment but few actions or outcomes were attached. Most attendees returned to the normalcy of preparing for the upcoming semester and did not fully reflect on the relevancy of her story. 

i burn.
 
i am a small hill of
twigs so carefully
carved into the
shape of flesh
and bone.
 
cut away the
unwanted parts
of me and you are
left with my
complicity and
eagerness to please.

​Imagine striking fear in 11 million without getting to know one. 
The certainty, the hubris, the firmness; to spill threats like water
as if they could simply dry and be forgotten. 
 
“Close your eyes and picture a safe place…a safe space with someone you love…someone who makes you feel secure.  Imagine a space where you and someone you love are safe together.”  His brow furrows, his back presses tight against his seat, and his ankles turn so his feet point inward.  He inhales and exhales keeping a familiar mind on the tune of his breathe.  

​Introduction
People commonly associate the State of Florida with white sandy beaches, bowing palm trees, and balmy breezes—a true tourist destination site.  Yet Florida is home to more than 600,000 undocumented immigrants who work in the hidden corners of the state in the agriculture, fishing, and farming industries (MPI, 2016).  Largely hidden from the public’s view, undocumented immigrants support the State’s construction and building industries, competitive horse breeding, and restaurants.  Economists predict that without immigrant labor, many states, including Florida, would face devastating consequences (Kurtzleben, 2013).
​
For undocumented children and families in Florida, the intersection of immigration and education policies has moved both in and out of the public spotlight over the past five years.  Undocumented youth between the ages of 18 and 24, referred to nationally as “Dreamers,” remain at the crossroad of state and federal policies.  In fact, the US government’s failure to establish a sound and workable immigration policy that provides legal status to undocumented immigrants and their children continues to threaten the very fabric of the US economy.  The lack of clarity regarding immigration and education policies for undocumented youth, who were not born in the US and therefore lack US citizenship, has incited fear and confusion among educators, families, counselors, and community agencies across the State.  Recent news media (Mitchell, 2016) suggests that the Trump administration, set to take office on January 20, 2017, may move swiftly to eliminate President Obama’s 2012 executive order that established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA, USCIS, 2017), compromising the safety and well-being of thousands of youth and families. 

​This is how you begin: you awaken
one morning, a marionette forced to dance
in a poisonous wind.  You see the ones who scowl,
perched in their seats of power:  one jerks his hand,
and the cruel strings yank.  To the dark square
you stumble forward.  Imprisoned in this darkness
you realize this stage has been set
long before you knew there was even a script. So what
if the evil is apparent—you are but one lone soul
powerless to resist.  You wail and sob
in despair.  For a long while, there are only tears;
then the wind shifts, and you finger the unyielding strings
and tug back: the one in the seat of power jerks his arm. 
Seeing what you have done, another tugs with you.
Then another and another— until the great one
tumbles from his great chair. So it is with all
awakenings into the collective power we possess.

Author Note

David Holper has done a little bit of everything: taxi driver, fisherman, dishwasher, bus driver, soldier, house painter, bike mechanic, bike courier, and teacher. He has published a number of stories and poems, including one collection of poetry, 64 Questions.  His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, and he has recently won several poetry competitions, in spite of his contention that he never wins anything.  He teaches English at College of the Redwoods and lives in Eureka, California, far enough the madness of civilization that he can still see the stars at night and hear the Canada geese calling. Email: David-holper@redwoods.edu

The day directly following the election, I had 10% of my Hispanic population either in my office or in the counselor's office crying, believing that they were going to be deported. This is not because they watch how our President-elect speaks of them; it's because of how their fellow students are treating them.
Oklahoma Elementary School Teacher and Graduate Student
 
My 3rd graders are on edge. [...] "I know my mom is lying so I feel better when she tells me it'll be okay" wrote one African American boy in his written response to the election results. [...] There is a complete rift between the students whose families support Trump and those that supported Clinton. One Trump supporter child even said, "well my family is all white, so we'll be okay" as his classmates voiced their fears about being separated from bi-racial parents. The tension in my classroom is that of the weather before a major summer thunderstorm rolls in: you feel the pressure, know the rain and thunder are coming, you feel prepared; yet you don't know exactly what to do.
Oklahoma Third Grade Teacher and Graduate Student