Growing up I had no interest in history or politics. I am ashamed to say that the first time I voted, I had no idea what the difference was between a Republican and a Democrat. I just voted the opposite of my parents. :)
I think today with the 24 hour news cycle plus all the stories shared on social media, our students are much more aware of things going on in the world. A well-rounded education should include these stories. In our class we focus on current events at least once a week and we do this often by using photographs. Let me preface this by saying, I think it's really important for us as educators to keep our opinions on events to ourselves. The students are forming their own opinions and I never criticize how they might feel about an issue.
Photographs-- I get my photos from MSNBC's This Week in Pictures site. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/week-in-pictures They cull photos from different newspapers around the world. Political events, human interest stories, pictures depicting different cultures are all featured. I have a huge powerpoint of these photos uploaded to Dropbox-if you e-mail me, I'd be glad to share the link.
Here are some ways I use them (I'm presenting on the topic for a district conference so it was easiest for me just to do screenshots of my ideas):
I ask the students to write what the people might be saying or thinking in speech bubbles. Sometimes we label it with a title or caption. Here is an example of one we did this week.
These students are going to have a lot of problems to solve in society when they grow up . Let's give them a foundation in what is happening around the world so they will be prepared to do just that!
No comments :
Post a Comment