Bert Corona High School in california. Tell us about your students. I am fortunate to teach a population that is almost entirely firstgeneration americans. Most of my students are emergent bilinguals coming into their english language skills. I get to take a group of students who really want to learn. Immigrant children love learning. Their parents are super invested in them. I get to be the guide to teach them about those connections to American History and World History and to their government and help them see their place within this country that sometimes doesnt always see them as a part of it. You are moving to a new bicycle in the San Fernando Valley in the fall. Typically, what have you taught in the past . When i started, i was the only history teacher. I ran the whole gamut, World History, u. S. History and government. This year, i will focus on government. When you say focus on government, what does that class what are the topics that class covers . I am fortunate to get to teach a full year of government. We get to go over the branches, functions, and all of the different levels. Then, i get time to talk about media and bias and their place in it. We take time to learn about journalism and media studies. To me, those are a huge part of government. We get to write things about how to vote, and they get to research. We get to see not just how the government functions, but how we participate in the functioning of that government. You talked about one of the challenges. You are teaching mainly first generation american kids. What are some of the other challenges in getting the concepts of the washington government across to students . In general, history is hard to convince people that it is not just a thing that happened before, but it is a thing that is actively happening now. History feels like something in the distant past that we dont get a say in. I hope to make those connections for my students that these are issues we are still reckoning with. Who cares that john adams tried to limit free speech . It is important to our conversation today about what is hate speech and what should be allowed and part of the discussion online. It takes making those connections for them that they may not make themselves. What current political issues or figures are the most talked about among your students . Donald trump is person number one. They will always come in and say miss, did you hear, did you see, can you believe and then we get to talk about the historical significance and those relationships, and we get to put those things into context. When the 2016 debate, we could go back and watch the 1960 president ial debate and look at how cordial they were to each other. Nixon and kennedy were so nice to each other. We can trace where those things shift. Reagan jokes about not holding andopponents youth inexperience against him and laughs with him. We can track when things become more partisan. How did we get here . How can we figure out and navigate away back. Whether it is President Trump or other current political issues, how hard is it for you as a teacher to keep your views in check and listen to what they have to say . The most rtant ing that i see my role as is teaching them how to think independently. That starts with research. How can you conduct research to verify things you find online . We like to think as adults that young people are geniuses with technology. Knowal natives that exactly what they are doing. They know the shortcuts. Parents dont think we can teach our Kids Technology skills. But we have to. They dont know how to verify if things are true or not that they see online. They see conspiracies on youtube and take it as gospel truth. At the core of teaching them how to identify what is true and what is not, we can apply those to politics as well. It is the same tame on the political system. Lets go back to the tape. Cspan has an important place in that. It is not just the sound bite. Lets watch the hearings. My students and i became obsessed with the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. I did not anticipate that. I switched around the lesson plans, and they got to do mock congressional hearings and they pretended to be people in the Senate Judiciary committee, and we watched the committee hearings. We watched our senators engaging in those backandforths and they could see what it was like. And learn about the politics behind everybody, and what they were saying. If you could bring those students to washington and teach them a lesson, what do you think that would be in the nations capital, whether it is on capitol hill or elsewhere . I would like to take them off of capitol hill. In otherhistoriey is places. A lot of students dont get into southeast d. C. Getting to go somewhere like the Frederick Douglass house in anacostia, it is somewhere that people might not think of but it has this rich, multicultural history that our students need to learn. Especially my students. They see history as something old white people did. To show them they have a place in that history as well, that is why i would like them to see Frederick Douglass house and see what he did. You are one of our three teacher fellows, why did you apply in the first place . I felt like i had a unique but becoming less unique perspective teaching english learners, teaching students who are immigrants. The face of america is changing and i have been on the front lines with those students. I wanted to bring my perspective of teaching a type of kid who has been left behind and developing my own practice as well. I have gotten to do that. I feel like after this month, i am going to be a much better teacher for my students. You are here with your other teacher fellows and other teachers coming in for a teacher conference, developing curricula for middle and high school students. What are some interesting ideas or practices you have heard from your colleagues . Zach and maureen have been prolific. They have taken on the task of doing state history. That is something a lot of middle School Teachers need. It is easier to find the National Stuff online. Finding specifically about north dakota is harder. They have been digging through cspans library, finding the city tours and getting the fun stories that you would not expect that the Mormon Church in salt lake city, they built that and were able to build that because they ended polygamy. They werent able to get federal funding to help them until they ended polygamy. These little stories that you think, that its really small to a place but it has these big political ramifications. Getting to see how we can find ourselves within a more local context and make those larger connections. Do you think you have a better understanding of a policy or process of the government that you didnt before that you can relate to your kids a little easier . I think that it has been a real delight to have, going on in the background, the gaveltogavel coverage. I have had that on the screen next to me. You can see moments that get missed. You get to see Little Things that our congresspeople do to connect back home that they dont get covered. They are always out there, sharing a picture of someone who is important and local. We think of them as National Figures maybe because our media is so nationalized. Us, i connections to think that is something i have been able to see and experience more often. You mentioned the Frederick Douglass house in anacostia. What other things did you do when you are in washington . They do jazz and sangria. That has been a real treat. I have gotten five dollar tickets to nats games. And it has been taking the time to be in a place for so long. We have been here for a month. It is not a two day whirlwind around d. C. , but taking the time to spread out in different places. Start spreading out beyond that core boundary that most of us think of when we picture d. C. It has been a delight to get to live in a place and feel like i know where i am going, and i am not just hanging around. As you head back to california and a new high school, is there a followup process to what you have learned here . I will be moving to a much bigger high school, and i will actually have a full History Department to get to work with. Not just me and a few other colleagues. I am excited to get to share this process. How to make resources and how to dive into the cspan library. 250,000 hours of it. I would love to be able to bring that practice to my fellow teachers. It is not just history teachers. There is content for english teachers and environmental studies teachers. There is a lot we can pull from that resource. 2019 cspan teacher fellow eleanor green. For more information about cspans education resources, go to cspan. Org classroom. Today, on book tv at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, live coverage from the mississippi book festival featuring author eric dolman. The civil war and the south chaplain all. Race and civil rights with professor dave tell. True crime casey sepp. Eastern, 9 00 p. M. Afterwards with analyst natalie wechsler. One reason kids score low on those tests is they dont have the background knowledge to understand the reading passage. It is not that they cannot make an inference. They make inferences all the ti in thr lives. That is not the problem so much as they lacked the background knowledge and vocabulary to understand a passage. A big problem that has been overlooked. Watch book tv every weekend on cspan2. Sunday at 9 00 a. M. Eastern, washington journal and American History tv live special callin program looking back at woodstock, the 1969 cultural phenomenon. Historian david farber, author of the book the age of great dreams joins us to take your calls. Drugs matter. Who takes those drugs. Why did they take them . It is something we are wrestling to understand. The technology of drugs. It is imperative to understanding not just the 1960s, but of history. The drugs we use have an ability to change the direction of society. Call in to talk to author david farber. Woodstock, 50 years, sunday at 9 00 a. M. Eastern on cspans washington journal and on American History tv. Democratic president ial candidate Pete Buttigieg attended the iowa state fair on tuesday. He talked to voters from a platform set up by the des moines register, answered reporter questions, and walked the fairgrounds to meet with attendees