Reader Response
A high school teacher in Clatsop County, Oregon, describes the mood at his school after last week’s election:
Twenty percent of our school demographic is Latino. I have students who are afraid of being deported. The kids are as stunned as the staff, even the pro-Trump kids. … One of my students, just old enough to vote, was berated in another of his classes (by the teacher) for his vote for Trump. He was called sexist and racist. He voted for Trump because he doesn’t see how a woman could lead the military.
My students want to know who I voted for, and I have always been closed about that. But this is a strange election. … I want to emphasize the rule of law, not riots and militarism. But I also worry about complacency, and I am—as a biology teacher—deeply worried about the ability of our planet to sustain life as we like it.
Read more here. If you’re a teacher, how are you discussing the election with your students? We’d like to hear from you, especially if you hold conservative views or if you voted for Donald Trump. Please send us a note: hello@theatlantic.com.
What You’re Working With: How Your Job Fits You
As part of our ongoing series of interviews with American workers, we’ve talked to a rancher in Nebraska who applies her psychology degree to improving animal welfare; a retired SAT proctor in Pennsylvania, whose personal ethics guided him through 53 years of making sure students didn’t cheat; a bartender in Las Vegas who began her award-winning career on a whim as a bored college student; and a hair braider in Iowa, who helped change the law in her state so that more people could legally practice the trade she started learning as a young girl.
We’d like to hear your stories from your own working life. Are you someone who doesn’t fit the stereotypes surrounding your job? Have you ever found yourself in a career that you’re not cut out for? How does your unique personality and skill set align with the work that you do? Please send us a brief note via hello@theatlantic.com, and we’ll post some of the responses as part of an upcoming project.
Look Back
On this day in 1960, 6-year-old Ruby Bridges became the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in Louisiana. In our March 1963 issue, Dr. Robert Coles, a child psychiatrist, described her experience:
A girl of six with blonde curls approached Ruby, and, loyal to her mother’s words, she told Ruby that she was not supposed to play with her. A few minutes later their teacher watched them busily jumping rope together. …
It is not that [children] are unaware of race, as is sometimes asserted. Children notice skin colors, and at five a child can talk in many ways about racial identity, depending on what his parents have urged. … I have seen Negro children draw pictures expressing their sense of rejection, of their shame and worthlessness, and their wish to rid themselves of these problems by having white skin. White children often locate their Negro classmates in separate inches of the drawing paper, sometimes encircling them with heavy black lines.
Yet, even after we learn that innocence is no longer the issue, children can be seen contradicting the very fears they sketch out in their drawings. … Determined parents, afraid themselves, can either transmit this fear to their sons and daughters or by example show them how to conquer it.
Read a PDF of the article here.
Verbs
Ghost-trackers busted, polygraphs tested, denim deprecated, Biden be-memed.
The Atlantic Daily is written by Rosa Inocencio Smith. To contact us, email hello@theatlantic.com.