‘Push through’: Philly teacher tackle’s her students’ post-election anxiety

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Jasmyn Wright is bringing a message of hope and positivity to her third-grade classroom in the wake of the results of the 2016 presidential election.

She is teaching her students to “push through” adversity and to come out the other side through determination and self-confidence.

“What if it’s too hard?” Wright asks her students.

“I’m gonna push through!” comes the response.

“What if it’s too tough?”

“I’m gonna push through!”they say.

“What if you’re too young?” Wright asks.

“That ain’t true!”

“What if you’re too black?”

“That ain’t true!”

— School lies to students about dead classmates, parents outraged — 

Wright explained that she feels her students struggle with believing in themselves and need that extra push to be reminded that they can do anything if they “push through.”

“I know that with my class specifically, sometimes they struggle with believing in themselves or sometimes they struggle with grappling through an assignment or they struggle with interactions with their peers,” she explained.

“With the election that went on, they were more troubled and they were upset,” she added. “[So I thought,] yes, this is true, this has happened, but that doesn’t stop us from pushing through. We still have a calling, we still have a purpose, we still are made to leave an imprint in the world, and we cannot give up because of whatever happened.”

As for whether her students are too young to be thinking about politics and elections, Wright believes that just isn’t true and that we underestimate how smart our kids are.

“They live in the same world that we do, they watch the same shows that we do, they listen to the same music, they hear the same news, and they are sponges and they soak things in. They’re also intelligent, so they can gain their own knowledge on issues,” she said.

“I want them to be their own source of encouragement when it seems there is no one else around who believes in them,” Wright said of her students.