Incorporating News in Teaching

I walked into a classroom on Friday where the teacher and students were discussing the current news of "educators dressed as welfare recipients" for Halloween and this week's reading instantly popped into my mind. This was a "bell ringer" that took over most of the class. It really turned into a teachable moment. My school uses bell ringers for every class every day.  This is a link to the article. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3283645/You-waiting-pay-day-waiting-month-School-principal-coach-husband-trouble-people-Walmart-costumes-mocking-people-welfare.html  

I held my breath as the students discussed this. I did not participate in this discussion and left in the middle of it because I was scheduled in another classroom. But I was there long enough to know the students were engaged! The class had a diverse student background economically as well as culturally. The discussion had three main focuses: the fun of costumes for Halloween, making fun of people on welfare and the principal and coach possibly losing their jobs. I am sure these students learned a lot from this without even knowing. 

On Tuesday my school will be using the Common Sense Media lessons for high school to maintain our CIPA compliance. This classroom discussion is a perfect example of digital media citizenship, our responsibility when posting to the internet and how this can affect our lives and the lives of those around us. I often use short NPR recordings from reporters around the world as suggestions for teachers to use during these lessons. 

I have always found it a little scary to just have an idea of traveling and then follow through with it. My children who are young adults do it though.  And I have taken an unplanned road trip or two in college, but never out of the country with no real safety net.  As I listened to her adventure of traveling and reporting in different countries with her friends I anticipated the line "and then the money ran out". 

They believed in what they were doing so much they could do this without thinking twice about it, or they were just young.  Sometimes I think just having the thought of doing something that might not really be possible is motivation enough. They reported about newsworthy stories from other countries that connect and inspire. When they got back to Philadelphia with their stories and organization, The Common Language Project, they were able to find people in the area that helped them by publishing their stories, fundraising, etc. I'm sure they learned a lot through this support group of sorts. You might say they were experiencing Place-based education and authentic learning to an extent. In return they are working with students to help them find stories all over the world worth reporting and helping to revive journalism in this world of digital media. 

I know that my Civics teachers employ news and current events a lot in their teaching. Most of them discuss the reporting aspect as well as the information. I was glad to see the bulleted information on pages 151 - 153 in our text. This can be utilized across the disciplines since all disciplines have some type of reporting activity each year. I am going to include the website on my resource page and in an e-mail as a resource for the teachers in my building. 

Stuteville, Sarah. "Journalism Revived." TEDx Ranier, January 17 2012. TEDx (web). 
 Hobbs, Renee. Digital and media literacy: Connecting culture and classroom. Corwin Press, 2011.