This link provides a short one-page perspective piece from a former teacher about what she would be teaching this year, if she were teaching. She acknowledges that this is not an ordinary election year, where the classroom can just focus on the issues, but one where it must grapple with some of the bigger ideas.
Some snippets:
If I were teaching today, I’d begin the year by discussing basic democratic values, sometimes called the “American creed”: Government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. Government exists to promote the common good. Individuals are entitled to political equality. People must follow the rule of law, with no one above the law. Majority rules but cannot take away fundamental rights. Truth is essential to the “American way.”
I know I’d be struggling if I were still in the classroom, but I hope I’d concentrate fiercely on this truth: My job, as an educator, is to prepare future citizens so the next generation can carry on in that “time we will not see,” to model citizenship and to “call American democracy back to its highest values.” So the question that each of us must answer is, “What does this election require of me as a citizen?”