When I was a student, current events was a standard part of the yearly curriculum. Though I remember few creative uses for the day’s newspaper cutouts, it did force us to be somewhat more knowledgeable of local and world events.

Then, in the mid-1990’s, the President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal became front page news. Day after day, more and more explicit and sensational details emerged about what went on between them. Newspapers went from being a must in every household to a serious decency problem for people who had children in their homes. I know many people who felt that they could no longer have newspapers laying around for fear that their children would learn all too quickly the details of adulthood.

Interestingly enough, it was precisely at that time that the internet was developing by leaps and bounds. Home computers were becoming the norm and it seemed like there was no hope to maintain anyone’s innocence about what went on in the world, whether they be an adult or child.

This brings us to the topic of this blog. In America today, much of the news reports we receive, whether from a paper or program, are presented to startle, titillate, create fear, or cause sensationalism. From my experience with New York papers and news programs, it seems that most information has to do with murders, car accident deaths, plagues, economic woes, and perhaps international wars.

Since we want our students to become responsible citizens, how can we best teach them to care about their world without overly exposing them to things which really aren’t news but rather tabloid information or which can possibly bring a feeling of despair?

Here are some suggestions for teaching current events in the classroom:

1. Rather than having students flip through the paper or internet for newsworthy items, perhaps have the teacher choose a variety of articles that offer sincere learning opportunities.
2. Should you prefer to have students present their own articles, be sure to pick specific topics. For instance, local holiday activities, weather comparisons in various places around the world, government electoral platforms, healthy living, environmental issues, etc.
3. Encourage active, respectful discussions by setting up ground rules. For instance, students must respect each others’ opinions, maintain proper tone of voice, and listen attentively.
4. When teaching current events, be sure to teach the difference between local, national and international news. Use a map to show where different places are located.
5. Discuss why a particular story is news worthy…or is it? Speak about the timeliness or timelessness of an item, relevance or impact of something, the progress that it represents, etc.
6. Raise open-ended questions for discussions. What do you know about X? What words and phrases come to mind about this issue? How do you feel about what happened? What are your thoughts on this issue?  What more would you like to explore about this? As interest builds, you can have students do more research and write papers or give presentations on their findings.
7. Many current events can be used as the basis for connected lessons. You can incorporate reading, vocabulary and spelling development, writing, math, such as creating graphs or comparing statistics, art, like making political posters or protest phrases, etc.
8. Encourage students to debate topics in a knowledgeable and respectful way. For younger students, designate different areas of the room for people who “strongly agree”, “agree”, “not sure”, “disagree”. Ask a range of questions on a topic and have pupils move to different locations which represent their feelings. Ask students why they think that way.
9. Get pupils involved with local issues in an active way. For example, let’s say there is a current event about a local soup kitchen. Students can collect packaged food items to donate.
10. Teach how to understand the media. What tactics are the ads using to have them appeal to us? Do they make us feel that “everybody else is doing it.”, it’s something for people “just like me”, are they distorting the facts to make it more appealing, are there stereotypes involved, are labels being used that are unsupported by facts such as “the best”, is a famous person used for a testimony to the greatness of the product, will this item make you feel rich and famous?
11. Compare the way different newspapers, television news, radio and the internet present information. Are some more positively slanted towards certain groups? Are the top stories not really important stories at all? Are they saying a lot of words without really saying anything?

In our pursuit to truly develop educated adults, current events can be one of the most important areas. By teaching the subtleties of news reporting, we can also teach our students to think and act independently and not just be passive receivers of whatever is being handed to us that day. This might be the greatest lifelong gift you can offer your students.

How are you teaching current events in your classroom? We’d love to hear from you.