For teachers who are fully engaging their students in this year’s presidential election, they have likely wondered how to teach about the many difficult topics that have arisen from this particularly unique election year.

Due to the challenging nature of some of the topics, 40 percent of teachers have said they are hesitant to even teach about the election at all.

Newsela in partnership with Teaching Tolerance, a non-profit from the Southern Poverty Law Center, is offering educators free resources that can put educators’ anxiety to rest by providing them with ways to teach difficult election topics without isolating students or comprising their unbiased positions.

One such resource is an hour-long webinar that will take place tomorrow, Thursday October 6, at 1 P.M. PDT. The webinar is aligned to the Students Vote 2016 Teacher Guide and registration is free.

For those unfamiliar, Students Vote 2016 is an annual endeavor sponsored by Newsela that provides students with an opportunity to exercise their citizenship so they are more likely to be involved citizens later on in life. Students Vote 2016 gives students the opportunity to participate in a nationwide student vote from October 17 - November 1 after enrolling in a Newsela class with election results announced a full week before adults vote in the presidential election.

Leading up to the vote, Newsela provides teachers with a multitude of resources that cover respective election issues such as Terrorism, Security and Gun Control, Immigration and Refugee Crisis, Health Care and Climate Change and more.

“Newsela's collection of election issue text sets provide timely and relevant leveled content to help students develop informed opinions on issues and candidates as they get ready to participate in Newsela's national mock election on October 17th - Nov. 1st and learn to become engaged citizens,” says Nicole Boyle, Manager of Training and Professional Learning at Newsela.

Boyle recommends that interested teachers tune into tomorrow’s webinar to get started.

"Teacher’s can tune in to our webinar series co-hosted by Teaching for Tolerance to learn how to discuss challenging election topics such as Black Lives Matter and Immigration Reform in the classroom. We are excited to partner with Teaching Tolerance as they are proven experts in providing the necessary resources to help educators navigate controversial conversations in the classroom,” she says.

Visit Newsela's website to find out how you can register for tomorrow’s webinar and participate in Students Vote 2016.

Nicole Gorman, Senior Education World Contributor

10/5/2016