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January 12, 2008
Teacher to Teacher - You are Among Friends

Relating current events or real world issues to the curriculum is an appealing teaching strategy. But the numerous ways to teach with news are dauntingly diverse and not easily shared with other teachers.

That’s why we’re looking to collect your stories, anecdotes and classroom tips at this blog entry, “Teacher to Teacher.”

Since experiences vary widely, our goal is to gather all manner of reports and stories, regardless of age level, subject taught, or other variables. As our collective “collage” of classroom experience grows, consistent themes, different strategies, or educational insights may emerge. In the meantime, sharing your story, technique or strategy can be immediately useful to others, not to mention morale building for us all, adding yet another teacher sufficiently dedicated to the value of teaching with news to share in our community effort.

Since you are reading this blog, I assume you are reasonably confident of your tech skills. You’re also probably aware that the “Web 2.0” internet is bubbling over with technological innovations and communication tools with broad implications for teaching with news as well as online collaborations. These will be topics for future discussion, and possible implementation as our project progresses.

But for now, I want to emphasize just the opposite tack with technology.

Please help energize this “Teacher to Teacher” section by reaching out to friends and colleagues who may be interested in teaching with news but might feel skittish, for any number of good reasons, about posting a comment to a blog.

Email is the only tool needed to actively join our collaboration. I am happy to discuss concerns, answer questions, and communicate directly with you or any teacher by private email. I am sending my email address directly to each person who signs up using the box in the right hand column and you have my encouragement to share it with anyone interested in contacting me.

NOW would be a great time to share a teaching with news experience, whether it be a short note, extensively detailed report, or anything in between.

Just click on the Comment button below or email me directly. Please mention resources you use, and the age level and subject area relevant to your experience.

THANK YOU!! Your story will help others gain a real-world understanding of how the real world impacts student learning. And it’s a crucial element of our NewsHour Teacher Center project: to build a community of teachers helping each other engage, inspire and thrive.

In Peace,

Brian

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Comments
Posted:
01/11/08 at
09:44 PM 		Marlene : History teachers are always trying to tie together what’s happening today with what has happened in the past. Providing these links on your site would be enormously beneficial. Another useful tie in would be to mention any pbs documentaries on a particular topic. I'm designing a class that is starting in Jan 2008 called Historical Roots of 21st Century Issues. I envision a dynamic, current events based curriculum where we look at current world problems and examine their antecedents.
Posted:
01/11/08 at
09:57 PM 		Nadine : If a news item or a program is one that I can use in my classroom, I almost always spend time looking for more "stuff" to back it up, tweak it, or enrich it for those students I know are going to grab it and want to fly with it. It would be great to have a ready source of other places to look literally at my fingertips. I also like the idea of the summary of things going on in the real world that I may want to explore more, review (we all know that a lot of educational ideas keep reappearing in cycles, sometimes with new names, sometimes not)
Posted:
01/11/08 at
10:00 PM 		Laura Dewell [Monacan High School - Chesterfield, VA] : I will be using the 2008 elections in my lesson plans for the coming months and, of course, in the next school year. This year I will be challenging my students, none of which are Honors or AP, just your plain, old average high school seniors, to learn to think critically as they watch and evaluate debates. After learning the various techniques that politicos use to make speeches, and really say "nothing," I will expect my students to be able to pick out where the various candidates stand on the issues whichare central to most voters. I had expected to use the Jan 14 "Rock the Vote" event to get students "warmed up" to the idea that they, as young voters, do have a right to be answered by the candidates, and that they need to make up their own minds relative to the issues. Since Rock the Vote was postponed due to lack of funds, I've been organizing my own mini project on the candidates. I'm using the lesson plan by Lisa Prososki "Analyzing the Candidates in the 2008 Presidential Election" from the NewsHour Extra plans. Since Virginia's primary is February 12, I think we should be able to prepare, present and post enough posters and project info around the room that my newly franchised students will have some idea where the remaining candidates stand on the issues before they hit the polls. Its absolutely amazing to see the gleam in their eyes when they show me their voter registration cards! Of course, that 100 bonus test grade that goes in the book contributes, at least in part, to that gleam... I allow them to choose when to apply the bonus. They can wait until they really need it to exempt the final, or maybe to pass the class... or whenever. Anyway, when they found they could vote in the Primary, even at 17 years old, you would have thought they had been given a million dollars! This is what I mean--they are finally realizing how serious voting is, and how much thought has to go into understanding their own "take" on the issues, before they find a candidate that reflects those same thoughts. I found a particularly good site that I will probably use on Issues :http://www.publicagenda.org/issues/issuehome.cfm It's non-biased and looks pretty interesting. I want my students to think for themselves and not fall into the trap of partisan politics before they thoroughly investigate in their own minds where they stand on the various issues. I also expect to have my students learn the "politics" of politics. It's something that I will use current events to try to explain and/or illustrate. Moving to the left or right, posturing, and grandstanding all are part of campaigning and "assuming the role." I want my students, in an effort to prepare for citizenship and the responsibility of voting, to be able to ultimately peel back the layers of the facade in which most candidates clothe themselves. This is perhaps the hardest thing I do, and I admit not all of the students "get it" but those who do develop a keen passion for politics and I know they will never let an opportunity to vote pass them by.
Posted:
01/16/08 at
05:05 PM 		Melissa [Terra Nova High School] : A great resource for political cartoons (and you can even sign up for daily political cartoons delivered to your e-mailis) is cagle.com. There is a very modest fee to download a cartoon, but I don't download or print the cartoons. I just show them on the website in class. I would also suggest an alternative of letting the students go to the website for homework. However, I know all my students don't have computer access.
Posted:
02/ 6/08 at
06:40 PM 		Sandy in Illinois : For years, my senior students have served as voter registrars in school and judges of election in our community. Illinois law allows students to do this, and the Cook County Clerk (in suburban Chicago) has an excellent outreach program to train students to do both of these worthwhile tasks. Students have to be registered voters to do voter registration (they are registered as they are trained as registrars), but can be juniors or seniors to serve as judges in Illinois. I don't know if other states allow this, but check it out. It is the best way to get students involved in the democratic process, and makes it more likely they will vote, and serve again as judges, in the future.
Posted:
02/20/08 at
04:26 PM 		KC : I try to make my lessons relevant to the kids and their daily lives. I'd like to share one little piece that helps with awareness of global warming. A teacher can do this experimentally, to a degree, but also just on paper. Weigh a small candle or a small quantity of gasoline. Burn it and weigh again (pretty much all burned up, so should be close to no weight after burning). Where did it all go and what's the weight of the exhaust? Chemically (this can take a few lessons to determine, using some great experiments), these fuels are hydrocarbons that oxidize when burned. Given the equations and the atomic masses of C, H, and O, the students can calculate the mass of CO2 and H2O produced. What's surprising to many is that the CO2 produced weighs more than the original fuel did. It's counterintuitive because it's a gas now and also because all that extra weight came from the oxygen in the air (also intuitively "weightless"). It's a good way for students to relate better to Al Gore's and others' statistics on tons of CO2 being produced by our society. They can then calculate things like how much CO2 is produced when the drive to school or to the beach.
Posted:
03/12/08 at
10:30 AM 		Diane Charnov, Social Studies Department Chair, The Langley School McLean, VA : The elections have provided me with numerous opportunities to weave current events into the more traditional social studies arena. My most exciting lesson this week which was a big "hit" with my 7th and 8th grade students was as follows: I showed them a few clips of campaign ads, including the now-famous 3 a.m. Hillary Clinton ad as well as the LBJ "daisy" countdown ad. As we are in the midst of Andrew Jackson's presidency, students then developed an ad for Jackson and a storyboard. They presented it to the class. This will then become part of a true ad they will either film/develop a power point for/etc....rough ideas, but the students certainly were engaged in past and present.
Posted:
07/29/08 at
11:48 AM 		Annie Oakley : I teach fourth grade, have taught higher grades such as sixth. Children who are at this age hear many things-about their environment, people running for office, etc. I have learned that children want to know what is true and many want to exercise their viewpoints and become involved at their level. I believe we owe this opportunity to children (they are, however, the future of our country and world). In my classes, I have utilized magazine articles, newspapers, the internet to inform students of environmental problems, choices we make and how that impacts our lives. Many students take it upon themselves after information is given to them, to act possitively and assertively to improve certain conditions. I believe in individual choices/voices and want to teach that our choices/voices do and can help to change what we do not think is right.
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