Falcon Feelings Post-Election: Laura Honsberger

Riverdale Review: Did you vote in the 2024 presidential election?

Laura Honsberger: I did vote in the 2024 presidential election.

RR: Roughly, how many elections presidential and non-presidential have you voted in? 

LH: Oh, I voted in all of them. Since I’ve been registered in New York State, I have voted in many elections, because I voted in midterm elections, presidential elections, and our off-year, mayoral elections. So I am pro-voting.

RR: What were some of your reasons for voting in this cycle?

LH: I think for me…in 2024…[there are] a lot of reasons that I feel a civic obligation about why I vote in general. I have two children. I have a five-year-old who would go vote with me, and I think it’s really important to model for her that voting matters, that participating in our community and in our democracy is important, and modeling that her voice matters and her voice will matter when she comes of voting age. I think oftentimes it’s easy to feel that one’s individual voice gets lost in democracy and gets lost in social change.

RR: What are your initial thoughts and takeaways following the election?

LH: My immediate thought after the election is that the work that the school is doing around discourse and talking to one another and having hard conversations is only more important after Tuesday. I think [for] one, clearly the country is very divided, and I don’t think that’s new to anybody… I think that elections, and this particular election, reinforce that. I also think…there are ways in which communities and individuals are discussed in our current political discourse that are very much outside what we as a Riverdale community find acceptable. And I think that that presents challenges within the conversations we have in the classroom. And so I’m thinking quite a bit about how to navigate that and how to navigate that while creating space for both my conservative and progressive students to hold their political opinions, but to do so in a way that values and respects and celebrates the humanity of everybody within our community and allows them to think about perspectives.

RR: Do you think Riverdale should address politics and their implications in the classroom more than we already do?

LH: Yes, yes, I do. But I think it is important to qualify that and say, I think it is important to open space within the classroom, but also outside the classroom.