As a high school history teacher, I engage with my students about the importance of democracy. The values of participation, representation, taking part in public discourse, and challenging authoritarianism in all its forms are ideas that we connect to our lessons daily. We’ve discussed, for example, the labor movement of the late 19th century and the Black Freedom Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Those conversations have felt particularly resonant lately. Last week, we marked the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot, and our suburban New Orleans school district elevated a man who marched to the Capitol that day — someone who has written that teachers have “no values” and “no work ethic” — to its board. Though he has since resigned, that the Jefferson Parish School Board ever put this man in a position of power speaks volumes about this place and moment.

I remember clearly how on Jan. 6, 2021, one of my colleagues rushed into my classroom to tell me that I “might want to turn on the news.” As my students were working independently, I quickly checked the news on my computer and made the decision that we needed to stop what we were doing and “witness history” ourselves. Together, we watched as the insurrectionists ran up the Capitol stairs.