We’ve all been there. You hear the pitter patter of your kids unexpectedly approaching and you urgently reach for the remote to change the channel to after-hours Cinemax, a Game of Thrones brothel scene, the final shootout in Taxi Driver, Ving Rhames bound and ball-gagged in Pulp Fiction… anything to avoid being walked-in on while you’re watching coverage of the election, or worse, a heavy-breathing scene from one of the presidential debates. But sooner or later you get caught. And you’re forced to have one of those dreaded parent-child conversations. “Remember when we talked about the birds and bees? Well, tonight we’re gonna talk about the election…” It could be worse. You could be tasked with teaching a social studies class in 2016. From WaPo: Teachers struggle with a presidential campaign full of vitriol, adult themes. The geography teachers have it the best. The most uncomfortable election-related question they get is, “Which way is Canada?”

+ NYT: “Maybe it’s the talk of fat shaming, or adultery, or sexual assault, or bans on Muslims and walls to keep out Mexicans. But Brent Wathke is having a rough time teaching this presidential campaign to his seventh graders.”

+ During this election, you have to pick and choose moments to use for educational purposes. For example, last night in an interview with Anderson Cooper, Melania Trump explained that as First Lady she’d like to focus on helping people counter the damaging effects of social media: “We need to guide them and teach them about social media because I see a lot of negativity on it.” Most Americans don’t know the meaning of irony, so this is definitely a teachable moment.

+ The coverage is trashy, and we’re eating it up. I admit that, for me, the presidential race has become an obsession. Sometimes, I seriously can’t remember what I thought about before I started thinking about this election. At least I finally came to terms with something. And I’d like to share it with you with this post: Yes, the media is biased. They’re biased in favor of stories that they can easily understand and that you’ll be likely to follow.