EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — 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.

威斯康辛州奥克莱尔市——也许是因为涉及肥胖歧视、通奸、性侵、禁止穆斯林和修墙阻止墨西哥移民入境的话题。总之，布伦特•沃思科(Brent Wathke)发现自己难以给他的初中生们讲解今年的总统选举。

He is not planning to show his students the third presidential debate on Wednesday; he feels the debates have long ago crossed over into inappropriate. Television ads, particularly the ones from Hillary Clinton’s campaign that heavily quote Donald J. Trump, are filled with misogynistic comments. Even political cartoons, which Mr. Wathke would have liked to use to teach his students about the delicate art of satire, are too risqué.

他不打算把周三晚的第三次总统辩论放给学生们看。他觉得此前的几场辩论早已少儿不宜。电视广告，尤其是那些希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)团队大量引用唐纳德•J•特朗普(Donald J. Trump)原话的广告，充满了厌恶女性的评论。即便是那些沃思科本想用来教会学生关于微妙的讽刺艺术的政治漫画，也太有伤风化。

“It is a total mess,” said Mr. Wathke, 33, sitting in his classroom at DeLong Middle School one morning last week, near a dry-erase board where he had scrawled “25 Days to Election” in a red marker. “Honestly, I just can’t wait until it’s over.”

“今年的大选是一团糟，老实说，我巴不得它马上结束，” 上周的一个早上，33岁的沃思科在德朗中学他的教室里这样说道。他在白板上用红色马克笔写下“距离选举日还有25天”。

Mr. Wathke is one of countless teachers across the country who have anguished over the dark and sometimes shocking tone of the presidential campaign. Like many, he has searched for ways to talk about it in class. Some teachers are planning mock debates before the election; others, like Mr. Wathke, fear that the format could invite students to spout insulting rhetoric.

全国无数像沃思科一样的老师们，为今年大选那种阴暗且有时令人震惊的调子深感苦恼。和很多人一样，沃思科也曾寻找在课堂上讨论这次大选的方法。有些老师计划在选举前展开模拟辩论；有些则像他一样，害怕这种模式会让学生宣扬伤害性的言论。

His students, most of whom are 12 years old, have been buzzing with talk of the campaign all year. The first group of students poured into the classroom just before 7:30 a.m., clutching notebooks and binders, and sat in desks arranged in circles.

他的学生们大多数是12岁，已经热议这次大选一整年了。第一批学生早上7点半以前就紧握笔记本和文件夹涌入课堂，坐在摆成一圈的书桌后面。

“I believe if Trump is elected, it’s going to be like ‘The Hunger Games,’ ” said Payton Foy, prompting nervous giggles around the room. “I’m not trying to be mean to Trump. I just really believe that.”

“我相信如果特朗普胜选，局面会变成‘饥饿游戏’一般，”一名学生佩顿•弗伊(Payton Foy)说道，“我不是要对特朗普刻薄。我只是真的相信是那样。”他的发言在教室里引起一阵局促的笑声。

Another student piped up, saying she had watched the second presidential debate the night before. “And?” Mr. Wathke asked.

另一个学生插进来，说她前一晚看了第二场总统辩论。“怎么样呢？”沃思科便问。

“It was bad,” she said.

“很糟糕，”她说。

He grimaced. “I don’t want to shield you guys from that, but there are some things in there that just aren’t appropriate for school,” he said. “So we’re going to stick to the issues today.”

沃思科做了个痛苦的鬼脸。“我不想挡住那些东西，不让你们接触，但那里面有些内容真的不适合学校这个环境，”他说。“因此我们今天还是讨论议题本身。”

Mr. Wathke has spent down time on evenings and weekends worrying about the effect of the campaign on his seventh graders. In Chicago on a recent weekend to run his 13th marathon (he is also one of the school’s cross-country coaches), he read the news that an “Access Hollywood” microphone had captured Mr. Trump on a bus bragging about groping women. There was not time for Mr. Wathke to consider the political implications; his mind raced ahead to the coming Monday morning.

好几个夜晚和周末，没有课的时候，沃思科深为这次大选对他的初中生们造成的影响感到担心。最近一个周末在芝加哥参加他的第十三次马拉松时（他是学校的越野跑教练），沃思科看到新闻，说《走进好莱坞》节目组的一个麦克风捕捉到了在大巴上的特朗普自夸调戏女性的经历。他根本没时间考虑该事件的政治影响。他的心思已经飞到了接下来的周一早上。

“All I’m thinking is, ‘How am I going to approach this?’ ” he said.

“我满脑子想的都是，‘我该怎么跟学生们讨论这事？’”他说。

His students said they have also wondered what they were allowed to say about the campaign in class. “We self-censor a lot,” said Connor Felton, 12. “I think if you repeat some stuff that Trump says, you could get sent down to the principal’s office. Maybe even expelled.”

他的学生们说，他们也在想，关于这场大选，有哪些话可以在课堂上讲。“我们经常自我审查，”12岁的康纳•费尔顿(Connor Felton)说。“我觉得如果你重述一些特朗普的言论，你可能会被叫到校长办公室，甚至可能被开除。”

Here in Eau Claire, a retail and manufacturing hub of 68,000 people in this crucial swing state, children and teenagers are most likely exposed to more political messages than most of their peers in other states.

奥克莱尔市是一个零售和制造业中心，人口6.8万。该市所在的威斯康辛州是个关键的摇摆州。这里的青少年很可能比其他州的多数同龄人接触到更多的政治信息。

Campaign ads and yard signs are everywhere; both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump have held rallies in town this year. Mr. Wathke said he gets nervous when he hears that his students are planning to attend rallies. At Mr. Trump’s rallies, the candidate has used foul language and mimicked a reporter with a physical disability. His supporters often wear T-shirts with crude sexual slogans referring to Mrs. Clinton.

到处都是竞选广告和庭院招牌。克林顿和特朗普今年都在这里举行过集会。沃思科说，他每次听到学生们打算参加集会，就会紧张。在特朗普的竞选集会上，这位候选人说过脏话，还模仿过一位身体有残疾的记者。他的支持者经常穿着印有粗俗口号的T恤衫，内容涉及性，针对的是克林顿。

In Mr. Wathke’s own classroom, he has aimed for civility. A native of Eau Claire with a polite manner, he was once a student at DeLong, where he now teaches in the same classroom where he learned social studies. Now, those walls are plastered with campaign signs, many years or decades old: Bush/Quayle ’92, Dole for President, Irish Americans for Kerry/Edwards.

在沃思科自己的课堂上，他想要的是礼貌。沃思科是土生土长的奥克莱尔人，举止彬彬有礼。他本人也曾就读于德朗中学，如今在他当年上社会研究课的同一间教室教书。现在，教室的墙上贴满了竞选标语口号，都是几年前甚至几十年前的：“布什／奎尔 1992年”，“选多尔当总统”，“爱尔兰裔美国人支持克里／爱德华兹”。

This semester, Mr. Wathke and his five social studies classes have been talking about politics — delicately — since August. He is teaching his seventh graders about the three branches of government, how democracies work and the differences between Republicans and Democrats.

这个学期，自8月份以来，沃思科和五个班的社会研究课学生小心翼翼地讨论政治。他教学生们什么是政府的三权分立，民主如何运作，以及共和党和民主党的区别。

Since he feels that free-form debate is risky, he prepared his class to discuss the campaign using “Socratic circles,” separating students into small groups. The students were armed with work sheets, filled out before class, answering questions he had posed. What are the most important issues facing the country? Where do the candidates stand? Which candidate would be a better president?

他认为自由形式的辩论有风险，所以改用“苏克拉底圆圈式教学法”引导学生讨论大选。他把学生们分成一个个小组。学生们上课前先在作业纸上回答他的提问：这个国家目前面临哪些重要议题？候选人的立场是什么？哪个候选人会是一个更好的总统？

At the beginning of one discussion, he laid out a warning. “We’re going to be talking about some topics today that can get a little tricky today and a little heated,” he said. “But we want to make sure we’re being respectful of one another and we’re not hurting feelings. Remember when we watched some of that debate? And there was one thing that was the most annoying thing? The interruptions. We don’t want interruptions today.”

在一次讨论开始时，他先给出一个警告。“今天我们讨论的某些话题会有点棘手，有点激烈，”他说。“但我希望大家互相尊重，不要伤害别人的感情。记得我们看过的那场辩论中的一些情形吗？里面最让人讨厌的是什么？打断人家说话。今天我们不想看到有打断别人讲话的情形出现。”

At the end of one discussion, Mr. Wathke looked relieved. “I want to say that you did pretty darn good,” he said. “You avoided the memes you see on social media. You stuck to the issues.”

一次讨论结束的时候，沃思科看上去松了一口气。“我想说你们做得真不错，”他说。“你们回避了在社交媒体上看到的米姆，坚持讨论议题本身。” （米姆 [meme]，指作为一种流行的、以衍生方式复制传播的互联网文化基因，可以是卡通形象、动物、当红视频等——译注。）

His approach: Tread lightly and let the students move their own discussion. If the conversation in class turns inappropriate, step in.

小心谨慎，让学生驾驭讨论。当发生不合适的谈话时才介入。

“The campaign is ruining a lot of classes,” Mr. Wathke said. “You have kids saying, ‘We need to have a wall to keep Mexicans out.’ Well, what do you do if you have kids who are Mexican in the class?”

“这次大选毁了好多门课，”沃思科说。“有孩子说，‘我们需要建墙把墨西哥移民挡在边境外面。’如果你的课上有墨西哥裔的孩子怎么办？”

That kind of conversation in the campaign arouses anger in some of his students. “Racial profiling is going way back in time,” said Donna Xiong, 12. “I don’t think it’s O.K. at all. If I got kicked out of a store for being Asian or for my skin tone, that’s not right.”

大选里的这类谈话让他的一些学生感到生气。“种族定性(racial profiling)已经存在太久了，”12岁的当娜•熊(Donna Xiong)说。“我认为那是完全不对的。如果我因为是亚裔或者因为我的肤色而被赶出一家商店，那是不对的。”

Gabriel Morken, 12, said he believed the Black Lives Matter movement was one of the most important issues. “Donald Trump thinks it’s really bad,” he said. “Hillary wants everybody to be equal and stuff.”

12岁的加布里埃尔•莫肯(Gabriel Morken)说，他认为“黑人的命也是命”(Black Lives Matter)运动是最重要的议题之一。“唐纳德•特朗普认为是坏事，”他说。“希拉里想要的是所有人都平等之类的。”

DeLong has a history of holding mock elections, and for as long as anybody there can remember, maybe 20 years or more, the students have chosen the candidate who later won the presidential election. This year, the mock election will be on Nov. 8.

德朗中学有模拟选举的历史。在学校里人们的记忆中，过去20年甚至更长的时间里，学生选中的那个候选人后来都真的当选了总统。今年的模拟选举将在11月8日举行。

After a group of his students filed out, Mr. Wathke said he never knows quite how much campaign news they have absorbed on YouTube and Snapchat, where they spend so much time. He assumes they see everything.

一群学生结排离开教室后，沃思科说他完全不知道学生们在YouTube和Snapchat上吸收了多少竞选新闻，毕竟他们在那些媒体平台上打发了那么多时间。他假定他们什么都看到了。

A few weeks back, he decided to show them a Romney-Obama debate from 2012, for a contrast. “I thought I’d show them what a typical debate would be like,” he said. “The first response was, ‘That’s kind of boring.’ ”

几周前，他决定给大家放2012年大选时米特•罗姆尼(Mitt Romney)和巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)的一场辩论，作为对比。“我想我要给他们看看一场典型的辩论是怎么样的，”他说。“第一个反应是‘好无聊啊’。”