This past month in my social studies methods class, I have been working on a global citizenship project with a partner. This project required that we find a current event from January, and relate it to social studies as well as other subjects. We had to create classroom ready examples, and even find technology that could easily be included. Personally, I loved being able to learn how easy it is to incorporate current events into a students learning! My partner and I used the government shut down as our current event, and as soon as we looked at the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, we immediately saw an abundance of connections in all the grade levels. I think this project was extremely beneficial because as educators, we need to ensure that our students are not only being taught what happened in the past, but what is happening in the world around them right now.
According to socialstudies.pressible.org, "The Social Studies classroom is an ideal platform from which students can establish a foundation of awareness and inquiry. Current events offer the Social Studies teacher countless opportunities to make the curriculum relevant to our everyday lives" (link at the bottom). I think this is the main reason for incorporating current events into the classroom. Teaching students to be aware of the world around them while also teaching them to question what the news and other media is telling them. This will help students to learn to keep themselves informed later in life as well as help them to understand that they cannot believe everything that they see. This relates directly to the North Carolina Teacher Candidate Standards, specifically standard 3d, which states that "Teachers make instruction relevant to students." By helping students make connections to what is happening in their world through the use of current events, we are helping students understand the importance of their learning and certainly help make their learning relevant.
In my future classroom, I plan to try to incorporate current events as much as possible in order to help my students not only see why their learning is important, but also to encourage them to continue to explore current events and what is happening in their world. I hope to help produce students that are informed citizens that can think critically about the information they are given and can make their own decisions. If I do not include current events and relevant ideas in my teaching in the future, I will not be adequately preparing my students for the world they will have to face in the future. This means that I, as an educator, will have to make sure that I am up to date and informed in order to model the importance of being informed.
http://socialstudies.pressible.org/lizhoelzle/current-events
