Sitting in the rear-facing “way back seat” of my family’s station wagon in 1979, we were counting trees tied with yellow ribbons to memorialize 55 Americans held hostage in Iran. As kids, we didn’t understand the conflict, but one thing was clear: Securing the hostages’ freedom was a collective national obsession. Much has changed about the way we express our democratic values in the U.S. and how we think about innocent hostages held today in Gaza.
My nostalgia makes me wonder how young people make sense of our current political divisions, including at UCLA. As an educator and researcher at UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies, my colleagues and I have been discussing our role to prepare K-12 teachers to advance social justice as global citizens. Teaching and learning to think critically and consider a multiplicity of perspectives has never been so crucial, nor has it been so…
