Dr. Elizabeth Washington is a Professor of Social Studies Education at the University of Florida College of Education. On this episode, Elizabeth and I discuss what it means to live in a democratic society and how to teach it our students, the main issues teachers face in attempting to facilitate difficult conversations, handling when students ‘go off the rails’ while discussing a heavy topic, the importance of relationships in facilitating difficult discussion, modelling citizenship in the classroom, handling general opposition to existence of social studies as a discipline, how Social Studies does not exist in many jurisdictions in the United States at the Elementary level, challenges to academic freedom in the US & Canada, the lecture/project balance, and, much more.