Enlightened Students - A Silent Salon Discussion "I pledge allegiance to the republic..indivisible.. with liberty and justice for all." A meme has circulated since the summer of 2020 that said: Every day for 13 years we pledged allegiance and recited the words "with liberty and justice for all" - what did they think was going to happen? In 2025 we still recite the pledge every single day at the high school where I teach. Students honestly don't recite it. They stand. They stop talking but no one says the words anymore. Yet some of those words seem so very important and meaningful to me as a world history teacher in 2025. You see, we've just finished studying the enlightenment and wow, those are some powerful ideas. They were revolutionary ideas about natural rights - which we now would call human rights. Locke's idea about liberty and the government deriving it's power to govern from the citizens truly they changed the world. Those ideas have stood as a foundation for America since our founding almost 250 years ago. We are a republic and that means our form of democracy asks citizens to choose representatives to speak for them and fight for their rights at a federal level. But how do students feel about pledging their devotion to "liberty and justice for all?" Do the words ring true or do they sound hollow? I was surprised to find that many students do hold these truths to be self evident when I gave them a chance to speak silently. Silent Salon The idea for our silent salon discussion grew out of a need - how to capture just how groundbreaking and exciting salon discussions were during the enlightenment? In my 6 months as a high school teacher I've learned just how hard it is to get students to have discussions or to participate in class in general. The free-flowing sharing of ideas is what made the enlightenment so exciting. I know students have ideas and if you get creative enough, they will happily share them. The Lesson: I printed about 30 different questions on individual sheets of paper. These questions took the ideas of philosophers like John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Mary Wollstonecraft and translated them for 21st century students. A few questions were:
Snowballed papers were then redistributed. For round 4 we again crumpled papers, distributed and responded to questions. I collected all the papers when w were done. Reconnecting to learning I intended this activity as a warm up and an illustration of salon discussions, as well as an introduction to the big ideas of the enlightenment, but when I had time to read the responses from students I was pleasantly surprised at their thoughtfulness and empathy. They want their rights respected and the government held accountability. They believe that being curious about other people is how we learn and that nugget was a delightful surprise. When it was time to work on our enlightenment project - a poem, rap, or cartoon about one of the enlightenment philosophers, I used the students' own answers to create a mind map of key ideas I would include if I created a poem about the philosophy of the class of 2028. Questions are all here. 
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  For one school year I taught history to seventh and eighth grade students at a school for Native American children. It was an experience that challenged every part of who I am as an educator and after a year of listening and trying very hard to learn with cultural humility, I collaborated with my students to create the Human Timeline of Resistance Project. The project was inspired by the humbling experience of learning Native American history to educate students who often knew more than I did. Resistance took many forms over the centuries, but truly the students I taught each day in their beautiful school that celebrated the cultures and languages of tribal nations was the most inspiring element of resistance. For peoples who the federal government tried to eradicate, their thriving existence is the ultimate resistance. Each of my eighth graders was filled with anticipation and excitement as they neared graduation. They were afraid and nervous of course, but also filled with a self-assuredness about their place in their culture. The Human Timeline of Resistance Project asks two essential questions: Can one person change the world? How is existence resistance? The purpose of this project is:
Knowledge gained:
How we did it:This unit started with an all class read-along of I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai. As we read, we filled in a character sketch of Malala. For each label (head, heart, legs, etc.) we added details that helped us understand what she had overcome and how she was an agent of change.  To launch our timeline building, we investigated a mix of modern art works, poetry and historical facts. From laws that banned interracial marriage to Indian Boarding Schools, students had the opportunity to choose how they wanted to reflect.  Students researched independently, developed their own questions and synthesized information with an authentic audience in mind. We thought about the younger students who would pass their timeline every day. What size font would make their ideas easiest to read? How much should they write so their ideas were clear but they also didn't overwhelm their audience? Crafting the model of an activist required a lot of trial and error. Ensuring that this final project reflected well on them and taught a lesson to the younger generation was an important motivating factor. It's important to consider these factors in eighth grade, when a special kind of "senior-itis" kicks in and distractions from anything other than school work abound.  Inspirational Awards At the end of the year I often give awards to every student that recognize their special gifts and contributions to the class. Never willing to miss the opportunity for learning, I'd used awards in the past that connected to historic figures. The Thomas Edison Award for "connecting" to classmates or the Muhammad Ali Award for not giving up, etc. These awards had always lacked gender parity and favored white men. So I created a whole set of awards based on our human timeline of resistance. My eighth grade students had already helped me connect each of their historic figures to the seven sacred gifts that guide the values of the school. As they received the awards, the seventh graders were curious to learn more about their historic person from the timeline. I was extra proud of the diversity represented in the timeline, and then the awards. Every student deserves to see themselves reflected in America's story but they also deserve to learn about heroes from other backgrounds so that they can build cultural comptence.     |
AuthorErin McCarthy is the 2020 Wisconsin Middle School Teacher and Wisconsin's Representative to the National Teacher of the Year Program. Archives
September 2025
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