My first question for the panel (or anyone else who would like to answer) has three parts. What have been some of the most challenging news issues you have tried to teach/develop curriculum around? What made them challenging, and how did you deal with those challenges?

IndyKids’ target audience is kids ages 9-13, so we usually try to think about how to make news issues accessible to a 9-year-old. The more challenging news items are those that many adults don’t understand and that took me awhile to grasp too. For example, the subprime mortgage crisis and globalization/free trade issues. These can be difficult for a young reader because there is so much you need to know first, whether it’s the vocabulary (what is a “mortgage”?) or history, such as the history of colonialism.

There are a few things we try to do when were prepare to produce a piece for IndyKids. First, we make a list of the main and most basic teaching points- the ideas we want the reader to understand. Photos, cartoons and the page design can help a lot toward illustrating the main ideas. And we try to bring in people’s stories when we can, especially those of kids who are affected. In our teacher’s guides we often suggest class simulations of the issue being discussed and activities that help students to place themselves in the position of the people affected.

Amanda and others, can you say a bit more about the teachers--and students--who engage with the incredible current events curricula you all put together. Clearly, the teachers represent the (most) progressive wing of the teaching force, but do you know more about them and the schools in which they teach? And do they tend to use, say IndyKids, in a social studies class or in an actual class called "current events?" (In my days in secondary school, I remember that there was a class, maybe it was an elective, called "current events," but in most schools that died long ago.)

Barbara - just speaking for myself (as a teache who uses Indy Kids) -

I teach Social Studies. In the 6th grade, the focus is on the Eastern Hemisphere. Current Events is not required curriculum, but I bring it in (with support from my principal). When I was in HS, we had a Current Events class, but sadly, I think that has been replaced with extra Math and ELA classes (since teachers are under increasing pressure to bring up grades in these two areas b/c of NCLB). As for my school, we are a Title I school (i.e., high poverty) with, like most NYC schools, a black and latino population.

The biggest challenge for me in developing a curriculum is not having a curriculum. The Nation is sent to me each Friday afternoon, and I have to turn in a teaching guide by Sunday night. I teach the magazine. Having said that, the biggest continuing issue is of course the election, and The Nation's coverage is very complete and complex, so the biggest challenge for me is trying to find fresh ways to bring the election into the classroom each week, a new angle, new questions, new developments to think about and analyze. My goal with the guide is to spark as much thought and discussion as possible, and also to get the students to do their own research into these issues (without relying on Wikipedia). Sometimes, it can be tough to come up with a fresh angle, but I try to imagine myself standing at the head of the class, trying to get an interesting discussion going.

I'm also big on connecting the past to the present (it's the historian in me), so every week I go through the Nation's archives and try to find a story from the past that sheds some light or adds something relevant to an article in the current issue. That can be a real challenge, but it's the most pleasurable part of the job, especially when I can find an article from the archives that supplements the current piece perfectly. Usually, the more time I spend digging, the better chance there is that I can unearth a real treasure.

There are so many challenges teaching sixth grade students. They are still trying to make sense of their world, but one thing I found pleasantly surprising when I started teaching in Brooklyn was that they are incredibly sophisticated when it comes to certain political issues. I suppose this is because as mostly poor, black and Latino students, they come into the classroom with a certain knowledge of the racism and inequality that working class people and people of color face. I suppose my biggest challenge stems from the desperation many of them face. Often when we discuss current events, from international issues like the war or local issues like the Sean Bell murder, they offer solutions that involve individual acts. For example, “if a cop harassed me, Id hit him.” Something like that. History has proven that social change comes from below when masses of people take to the streets, not from individual acts. In order to have mass movements you must organize. Slapping an NYPD officer will not only get you thrown in jail, but wouldn’t end the police brutality that working class people and people of color face. I teach world history with a focus on ancient and classical civilizations. However, I have a number of opportunities to teach more current American history. Civil rights, for example. One film I showed in my class was Walkout about the 1968 East Los Angeles walkouts in which Mexican-American students from a number of East LA high schools walked out of their schools demanding better treatment and more educational opportunities. The teaching I did around the film reinforced that the students didn’t just get pissed off and run out of the school because they were being treated unfairly. It took organization. Besides, anger doesn’t necessarily lead to spontaneous action. It takes organization. Without going too much into detail about how the students in the film did this and how I taught around it, that was the message – that it takes organization, and a political argument with angry students, to organize the type of mass protest necessary to get reforms. We were able to come back to this issue later in the year when the high school students (I teach in a 6-12 school) were organizing a Mayday walkout in protest over the recent education budget cuts as well as the acquittal of the police officers who murdered Sean Bell. Many of the students came to me asking what they should do, whether they should walk out or not. Again, without going too much into our discussion, the students knew that they had to organize so that every student participating would know what they were doing. They did hold a little protest, although they didn’t walk out of the school. At 12:00, when the highschoolers were calling for the walkout, my sixth grade students walked out of class and into the hallway and sat down holding up signs in protest of the budget cuts, the Sean Bell acquittal, and in favor of immigrant rights. It was a proud moment for me. There are other challenges I struggle with. For example, many of my students hold reactionary ideas against those in the LGBT community.

John, you bring up some excellent points. As a former middle school teacher myself (8th grade), I know how challenging it can be sometimes to get middle school students to see the "bigger picture", if you will. A lot of that is developmental and will come with time and ongoing exposure to these ideas, but you show, John, how you can address this in the classroom too. By talking about consequences and cause and effect, by talking about the underlying issues to social problems, by showing the kids examples of what can be done, and by pushing them to look for realistic, long-term solutions, they can begin to see the bigger picture. Again, this is no small task, and can't be done in 15 minute current events lessons, so it's important to integrate selected issues and analysis like this into what you are teaching. And in the end, I think it makes what you are already teaching more meaningful for students, because they see those real-world connections.

Nor can this be done over the course of a year. It should be ongoing, throughout the grades. Sadly, since Current Events, especially political issues (besides the elections every 2 or 4 years), are hardly discussed (IMO). At least in my school. I can only hope their 7th grade teacher expands on some of the issues and strategies we touched on in the 6th grade. Luckily, we have a 9th grade teacher who does this, but I don't think they do a lot in between.

I am an ESL teacher and would like to ask Ricky, or anyone else, how he adapts his lessons for ESL kids. Indykids are good but are there any other resources out there where real issues can be discussed by kids who are new to English?

You are right. Indy Kids is a good resource for ESL/ELL/LEP students. There are main articles with sidebars and smaller articles for students with limited abilities, be it English lang. skills or low reading levels.

Where do you get the Indy Kids materials?

Go to www.indykids.net to download the paper, find out how to get copies and to subscribe.

Free copies of the Summer 2008 issue are currently available (as of last week) in New York City at:


MANHATTAN
• New York Indymedia office, 4 W. 43d St., 3nd floor
• Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen St (between Stanton & Rivington Streets)
• Labyrinth Bookstore, 536 W. 112th St.
• Ottendorfer Library, 135 Second Avenue
•Mulberry Library, 10 Jersey St.
• 96th Street Library, 112 E. 96th St.
• Julia De Burgos Latino Cultural Center, 1680 Lexington Ave, (between 105th & 106th Streets)

QUEENS
• Jackson Heights public library, 35-51 81st St.
• Espresso 77 Café, 35-57 77th Street, Jackson Heights


BROOKLYN
Tea Lounge, 350 7th Avenue, Park Slope

I believe the radio program Democracy Now! publishes transcripts of their shows in Spanish and English. I am going to email them to see if someone from the program can answer your question.

There is a link on democracynow.org for a Spanish translation of the day's news.

Read my comment to the first question. I just posted. Anyway, it really depends upon the English level of your students. But, for all levels, the subject matter must really be broken down. So, currently I am doing a "unit" on child labor. When I used the New York Times, I only copied a part of the article that really targeted what I wanted the students to get out of the subject matter. I went to the offices of Amnesty International and they gave me a "mini-book" about human rights cases. There they had a story about a child-laborer from Pakistan. The story was easy to read. Then, you just get lucky. After we read the this particular story, a student of mine gave me a book with a whole case load of human rights abuses in different areas that are fairly easy to understand. She received this book through a student organization she became apart of. Also, if you let your fellow teachers or advisers know that you are interested in this topic, they may come up with material for you. This also happened to me.
The book the student gave me is called "From the Pain Come the Dream: The Receipients of the Reebok Human Rights Award. This samples a whole host of human rights issues. It has great pictures in it. If the English is too difficult for your students, you can always rewrite the articles in easier English.
There is another great book I got on Child Labor from someone in the school. It is put out by teh American Federation of Teachers. The address is International Affairs Department 555 New Jersey Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001-2079.
Sometimes it takes a few years to gather good material. I know of another great, easy to read magazine to subscribe to. It's at my house, so I will tell you tomorrow.

The New York Times "Upfront" has really good issues for ESL students. In one of the issues it discusses 10 Supreme Court Cases Every Teen Should Know, an article about illegal immigrants, Sikhs forgoing their turbans and cutting their hair, integration and Central High in the South, and child soldiers. There are pictures, charts, and the vocabulary is not so difficult.

The most challenging news items are those that are complex, whether it be genocide in Darfur, or war in Iraq, or broader issues such as globalization or global warming. You don’t get the full context from one online news story, or a brief discussion in just one day. There are just too many layers to the idea, which means these are the perfect types of issues to bring into the classroom because that’s where you can really lay out the context with students, research the history, and discuss the implications and what should be done. Of course, teachers don’t have time to do this in the classroom with every complex story, so it’s important to choose issues that connect to your curriculum or will help build skills for students. And once you really teach an issue like this in-depth, students will keep coming back to it over and over. They understand the context, and are better able to digest updates and new events related to that issue.

Back to your question: how did we deal with the challenge? Well, at World Savvy, we have been sending out bi-weekly current events resources to our network of teachers for a few years now: with leveled readings, discussion questions, recommended curriculum units and lessons. And while this was useful to many teachers, it didn’t do what I just mentioned above - - lay out the historical context and layers of these complex issues. So we just launched a new resource called the Global Affairs Monitor that aims to do just that - - provide comprehensive background and analysis of one region or issue each month. Each issue includes an introduction and context, detailed timeline, descriptions of key stakeholders, as well as a Classroom Companion with ideas for teaching the issue in the classroom. The goal is to provide as much of that context and background as we can for teachers, all in one place, and then they can choose from this wealth of info for their students.

one of the things I try to do with my question is to try to bring all these events home to the students: how does the economy affect you and your family personally? how might the election impact your life? who do you know has been personally affected by the war? etc.

It sounds like helping students understand the context of issues is a challenge that many of you have faced. But what about the issues themselves? It seems to me that one of the reasons it’s hard to bring current events into the classroom is that many of the issues are politically controversial. History teachers at least have the benefit of distance. The passage of time means that ideas that were once considered radical—slavery is bad, women should be able to vote, Japanese Americans shouldn’t be interned—provoke little argument today. And the most radical leaders—Frederick Douglass, Cesar Chavez, etc.—are completely sanitized by history. But imagine trying to teach about these issues or individuals during their day.

Teachers today who do try to teach about contemporary problems from a social justice perspective are sometimes accused of perpetuating a liberal agenda. How do you deal with that problem? Can you give an example of a particular issue that you tried to teach or develop curriculum around that was controversial?

Well, it would be hard to cover up the Nation's liberal agenda, although my standard answer to people who accuse the magazine of knee-jerk liberalism is to ask them to cite where their reporters got their facts wrong. One of the things that make The Nation as good as it is is its reporting. Still, I pride myself when putting together the teaching guide to also include questions such as "How does the Administration defend its response" or "What is the GOP point of view." Then I generally, ask, "Which side do you think is correct. Explain your reasoning."

IndyKids has received reports of teachers and librarians being challenged for using IndyKids. There hasn’t been any particular article that was challenged. The only challenge is that IndyKids is “biased.” We encourage teachers, and I know many do, to discuss bias and perspective. IndyKids is upfront that it is a progressive paper that aims to offer a social justice perspective. If a publication does not state its bias, does that mean it has none? Of course not. A good exercise is to compare perspectives of different publications on an issue and ask the students who benefits from the perspective put forward in this article. What details are important to the writer of this article and why? For example, are the opinions of activists, the Iraqi people or people of color reflected, or only those of President Bush and Congress?

I have been in schools that subscribe to (as in, the school’s budget PAYS FOR) the NY Post, the Daily News and the New York Times in addition to Jr Scholastic and Time for Kids. Schools leave these out for students to take. Shouldn’t the school also subscribe to publications with an alternative perspective?

The American Library Association’s Bill of Rights is very supportive of IndyKids’ position on this. It states:
“II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”
Most educational standards that teachers are required to follow state something about fostering “critical thinking.” It seems to me that one of the best ways to do this is to offer materials from a variety of perspectives and let the students research, debate and come to their own conclusions.

It's inevitable that there will be controversy surrounding some of the issues brought into the classroom. As Jeff said, I think it's crucial to present both sides of the issue, making sure students understand the status quo and progressive viewpoints, and then challenging them to make informed decisions. As teachers, I also think this is another practical reason to connect such issues to your curriculum - you're not just bringing up issues for controversy's sake - these are important intellectual exercises to go beyond the textbook and make sure the students understand multiple perspectives.

This brings up the inevitable question of media literacy. Are kids truly understanding what they read, and what is being digested? When they read from all these news sources, can they detect the bias? Do they know how to find other sources to provide additional perspectives? Usually not, and we have to teach students how to do this.

As a place to start analyzing news sources, I'd like to plug a simple tool from another Bay Area organization, www.gradethenews.org. They have a simple rubric that teachers can use to analyze the local or national news for content and biases. It's written for TV news, but could be adapted for print media as well.

I think about Howard Zinn's introduction to his "A People's History of the United States" where he says that he chooses to portray (North) American history through the eyes of the victims - Independence through the eyes of slaves, the Spanish American War throught the eyes of Phillipinos, Industrialization through the eyes of children forced to work in factories, etc. (Not sure if he used those specific examples, but you know what I mean). There is a big difference between pushing an agenda and showing the students American History (for example) through the eyes of the "victims."

For example, when I teach U.S. History (which I don't teach at the moment), we go over the Columbian Exchange and how Columbus' discovery led to the eventual settlement of the "New World." My students have been learning that since day one. My students have heard about "Columbus the Hero" since they started school. That is biased. That reflects an "agenda." Too few teachers teach Columbus through the eyes of the Taino natives. Yes, I have an agenda - my agenda is to teach a true multi-sided version of history, not a eurocentric version.

To what extent does your personal perspective on the issues you're exploring with your class shape your conversation? Should your position on issues be clearly stated, should it be present, but in the background, or should it be completely invisible?

I know that IndyKids had a great reply to the charge that it was biased... They compared IndyKid's treatment of the war against Iraq to Time for Kids treatment. I hope someone from IndyKids expands on that.

I clearly state my opinion, but make sure my students know that all perspectives should be presented. This is often difficult when you have a class of students who are against the war. Often I have to play devil's advocate. This is often a question progressive teachers are faced with (from others, usually), but the same question is never heard to question teachers who are pro-war, pro-military, pro-corporate, pro-capitalist, etc.

This is from IndyKids' talking points on bias that John is referring to:

Question: I have trouble using IndyKids in the classroom because it’s biased.

Response: All news publications and all media children are exposed to are biased, whether they admit to it or not. Mainstream publications are financed by corporate sponsors and wealthy people. Writers and editors write from the perspective of their class and cultural background, and it is generally from the dominant class and culture. They present a view that is overwhelmingly favorable to the U.S. government and corporations. This is bias too. When Time for Kids says that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is “working to help bring peace” to the Middle East and, “After all, she is making history,” (Feb. 9, 2007), Time for Kids is presenting a biased perspective. Time for Kids does not point out Rice’s role in the U.S. drive for war in Iraq or call the millions of people who protest the war in Iraq peacemakers. It does not present the perspective that the people play a role in making history. This is a perspective you can find in IndyKids.

While it is fine for Time for Kids to present a biased perspective, it is questionable for school districts to spend public monies for Time for Kids, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Readers Digest and other publications from a similar perspective while discouraging or not allowing IndyKids to be used in the classroom or to be displayed in the library.

Currently, in my Transitional English as a Second Language class, I am introducing the topic of "child labor" to the students in the class. Since my students' first language is not English, the most challenging part of teaching the subject is to find material that is language appropriate. Once I use motivation and other teacher techniques to set up the subject, I then use primary sources. For example, I am using an interview by Amy Goodman with Christian Parenti, a correspondent for "The Nation" magazine about child labor and the chocolate industry. I'm not sure if the students truly understand it. So, I need to go back and really walk students through the process by showing students pictures of child labor, exercises about whether different situations are examples of child labor, a map of the world to show where the Ivory Coast is (the subject of the story), etc. This is the most difficult part of the task.

The new Summer 2008 IndyKids (available at www.indykids.net) has a center spread on child labor with lots of photos.

Also, Rethinking Globalization, published by Rethinking Schools, is excellent for teaching materials and classroom activity ideas:
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/publication/rg/

It has a whole section on child labor.

I can actually help you with the issue of child labor. Global exchange has a unit on fair trade/child labor regarding using chocolate (use it on Valentine's Day) as the subject. Go to globalexchange.org or here:
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/cocoa/docrequest.php?docurl=ChocolateBook36.pdf

Its content is fairly accessible and it's got maps and photos. I also use the book Iqbal by Francesco D'Adamo. Since the reading level is high, I use it in the inclusion classes where group work is possible. There are plenty of supplementary materials on the Internet. To start us off, I ask the kids to go home and tell me some of the countries where their clothes are made and then read the piece on child labor in the summer issue of Indykids. Really good discussion! I also like this short film:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4786079244183070132&pr=goog-sl

Apparently Howard Zinn's A People's History of the US is coming out in comic book, oops, I mean graphic novel form. That might be a good resource. Has anyone seen it?

I have a graphic novel version of A Peole's History of American Empire. I only just got it so I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I don't know if there are other graphic People's History books.

New teachers are brought into schools where testing rhetoric and language have precedence over questions of critical and useful pedagogy. Additionally, teachers at schools (such as myself) where administrators are not supportive of teachers using alternative information sources into the classroom think more about test scores than critical thinking applications which is what you folks provide through your amazing teacher tools.

What sort of response have you folks gotten from administrators, how have you convinced administrators to become supportive of using your materials (i.e. how did schools end up buying subscriptions to indykids) and are there organizations of administrators and principals who continue to promote the use of alternative/progressive materials into the classroom?

IndyKids has very few entire schools that subscribe (though the paper is freely downloadable at Indykids.net, so you don’t need to subscribe to use it). Our subscribers are individual teachers who use the paper in their classroom and are likely paying for the subscription out of pocket.

I think for a teacher who wants to teach critical thinking and alternative perspectives, it’s always going to be tough and there will always be opposition. Maybe it’s possible to get into a progressive school in a progressive neighborhood where the administration, parents, teachers and students welcome a social justice perspective. But this is just not what our society promotes right now. And even such a school may not be able to escape the standardized tests.

While I’m not yet a classroom teacher, some of the best days I have are those where I get into principled discussion and sometimes debate- in my graduate classes, at church, in a community organization, or at IndyKids, where I am able to challenge the dominant perspective and advocate for what I think is right. Even in NYC, I feel that if I don’t raise questions, my colleagues may not hear it from anyone else. Those are the days when I come home and flop down on the bed and say, “I did a good job today!” But it’s rough and could be risky in a job situation. I think it’s really important to have a support network such as the New York Collective of Radical Educators or Teachers Unite or just a group of like-minded friends for when you feel isolated at your school.

It sounds like there are two possibilities here for bringing current events into the social justice classroom. One is trying to teach a certain event “from all sides,” giving youth multiple perspectives and then letting them decide for themselves what they think. The other is focusing on the perspective of the victims, to quote John quoting Howard Zinn, with the assumption that they will get enough of the perspective of the victors from other places. Do these two techniques contradict each other? Are there some situations, some stories in which one approach is preferable to the other? Do you as an educator have a personal preference?

I think it depends on what you're teaching and how much time you have. If it's a current event that hasn't been taught in class year after year (like Columbus), it's very instructive to use and compare multiple publications since most of what's out there is from the dominant perspective (like government or corporate officials). This is useful for learning media literacy. I have read that media literacy is a core required school subject in several countries in Europe, whereas here it seems to be considered fringe!

Resource: For my own media literacy education, I really like the radio program Counterspin, http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=5 (online or on WBAI 99.5 at 10am on Fridays) produced by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

I agree, Amanda. This is exactly what I was thinking. One of the reasons I don't give up on teaching the mainstream media too is that kids often can't tell the difference (hope I'm not sounding too pessimistic here). Using the mainstream and teaching the issue from alternative news sources and media, helps students see the difference and develop that media literacy so that they can analyze for themselves what's churned out in the mainstream media.

I think what Tara is suggesting, for example using Sheehan to criticize Cheney, is the next logical step in this process to get them to the next level of understanding and media literacy.

Hello everyone! Great forum. I think we should always strive for equity in perspective, of course, that is only fair to the child. But I also have to be honest and admit that I do develop a year-long over-arching bias that leans towards confronting our foreign policy. A significant portion of what I do in the class is always undergirding that topic, and I think it so important to start with that at a young age, so the kids can be better prepared when they get into high school and uni. to challenge our existence as a society and help to make it a place with a lot more integrity.

I am just of the belief that our foreign policy (and domestic policy for that matter) carries two masks, but that one of these masks is extremely criminal and has been for as long as we have been a country, and to this very day we live with its blowback, as Chalmers Johnson referred to it. We need to help the kids understand this concept and other problematic decisions we've made in the Middle East and other parts of the world that make us out to be very hypocritical and continue to be as Dr. King said, "the greatest purveyor of violence" in the world. The overthrowing of Mossadeq in Iran in '53, Allende in '73, and the removal of the Chagossians native to the island of Diego Garcia to put a military base there and, use it as a secret prison are just a few of the cases that should be learned by our kids going into high school so that they can start to cut through some of the rhetoric of our leaders who are perpetually implying or blantantly stating that we are only doing what is right and good for the world. Is this the modelling we want for our kids? A lot of our kids are already rebelling against a lot of this propaganda, but instead of learning about it, sometimes, they shut it out, avoid talking about it, and get ensnared in cynicism. We've got 7th graders walking around thinking that our votes do not count. We have to inspire them at a younger age so that they vest themselves in their learning.

I am now at the point at my school where my administrator asks me if what I am doing is "political", when I decide to do a bigger project for the entire school. I think I am doing my job when my administrator is confronting me on this point. (e.g. We had a "Darfur Dinner" one time; I had Salee, a 10 year-old Iraqi amputee, join my class one day; we screened the documentary, "Recycled Life", etc.) But what rankles me is the fact that my administrator is even asking this as his first question. Why are not the questions: "If the materials you are presenting are controversial or political in nature, how are you ensuring that they are presented in a balanced manner?" I digress.

My questions for you guys, however, broach a different topic. I just recently read that a student from Agoura Hills near Los Angeles received a $13,000 scholarship to the Program for the Exceptionally Gifted at the age of 12. Michelle attends Harvard Westlake School in L.A., but is now planning on attending the PEG program at Mary Baldwin, a four-year liberal arts college in Staunton, Va. She took the SATs in 7th grade and attained a very high score on them. My question is, I guess: how do we make sure that our kids in the public schools are aware of these various programs, SAT test-taking, and scholarship monies? I am assuming that Michelle is just surrounded with all this info. How do we make sure that the public schools students are aware of the same programs and info?

I want to go back to this issue of multiple perspectives, following up on a question I asked last night. Several people have made the point about the importance of teaching an issue from the point of view of the mainstream media as well as the alternative press. I want to push you all a little more on this issue because sometimes I think that while it sounds like common sense, the phrase “teaching from all sides” can actually cover for a lot of different approaches. For example, some panelists have talked about how you can critique mainstream media by asking questions about whose point of view is included, whose is left out. But by doing so, are you really teaching an issue from all sides or are you simply using the mainstream media as a foil for the perspective we want to promote? In other words, does teaching from all sides mean giving Dick Cheney’s and Cindy Sheehan’s points of view about the war equal value or does it mean using Sheehan to critique Cheney?

I think it is useful to ask those questions when using any text, including the mainsteam media. Whose Point of view is this from? Who's voice is missing? How can we recover lost voices? I used those questions when my class studied some very biased texts on Columbus.

Why do this? Because they are saturated with Cheney's side of the story, arent they? We can ignore the mainstream media in the classroom and have our students learn about issues, historical or current events, from a working class/minority perspective. But outside of my classroom - at home, in church, or in other classes, they are learning the ruling class' perspective. Better to teach them to critique the MSM. And at least my kids come to the classroom fully aware that the MSM is biased against them. This comes up every time we read Indy Kids. For example, we are reading an article on the high number of African Americans in the prison system and a number of my kids have family members locked away for non-violent offenses. Two of my students have parole officers.... and they are only 11!!!!!

I hope I understood the question and answered it correctly.

I agree with John and would like to add a point about teaching students to find out the facts and the truth.

In starting a unit, a class may pose questions such as: "what do we know about this topic and what do we want to know?" As the unit progresses, more questions may come up and be added to the list. For example, "Why did the US invade Iraq?"

Then the class may research these questions and access multiple sources. In their research they may find Dick Cheney's point of view and Cindy Sheehan's point of view and evaluate the differences and which is closer to the truth. So, it's not a matter of giving equal value or using one to critique the other, but of the students themselves finding the facts and giving value to what they think is correct, based on the information available.

I think it is very important to teach multiple persepectives. A primary rule in becoming knowledgeable about an issue and debating someone on a topic is to know all sides of the discussion. If we teach students to fully understand an issue in an intellectually honest fashion, then knowing what someone may retort is of extreme value. I just read an article in the New York Times about a Japanese writer who had to defend himself in court (I believe) concerning his writings about war crimes by the Japanese military during WWII. He said that he spent an incredible amount of time reading the military's version. He said that knowing their side helped him win his case in court because he knew what their strong and weak points were.

As a journalist trained to present both sides, I have to agree. I do think there is a right and wrong though, but I am confident that the truth will emerge when students are taught to weigh different factors and arguments (I actually wrote two books on baseball that used baseballs statistics to teach students to do just this). But for me a lot it is not only about evenhandedness, but it's also about teaching students to do their own research, and if that means digging out what the other says, that's fine with me. It also seems to me that your argument can only be strengthened by understanding the opposite perspective.

This makes me laugh, because the first teaching guides I did were for US News and World Report, and I was constantly urging students to find out what the other side's points of view were, and the other side was the progressive one. It was a bit like conducting my own little guerilla war against the mainstream media.

Good afternoon! There's a lot of great sharing going on here. Thank you. I am a new United States History II teacher and something that I have been struggling with is how to fit current events into a curriculum that is driven by strict state standards. I have tried to bring in current events as transitions in between units, but I often find it difficult to get to the meat of the current event that I want to discuss. My students have so much to say about what's going on around them and oftentimes I feel constricted by the requirements of the USII Curriculum. How have you all dealt with teaching current events in conjunction with "the standards?"

I am not sure my last question was very clear. What I was trying to get at is the idea that the phrase “teaching from all sides” can cover at least two different approaches that I would argue are almost diametrically opposed to each other. What I think people think that phrase means is giving equal value to all points of view and letting the student decide for him or herself. It sounds like what some people are suggesting is teaching from a particular viewpoint and using the other viewpoint as target practice, if you will. Helping students hone their media literacy skills to, taking off from Ricky’s point, better understand the enemy.

I am not trying to take a position that one is better than the other, merely trying to argue that the same phrase can be interpreted in these very different ways and trying to get a sense of which interpretation you prefer and which you think fits best into a social justice classroom. Is that any clearer?

If people are interested in this point and want to continue the debate, that is great. But I would also like open up a new line of discussion. I was hoping that you could share with us some of your favorite lesson plans. Is there a recent news topic on which you have found/created a particularly powerful piece of curriculum that you can tell us about? What made it so powerful?

I can't take credit for this one, but it's a good example to share. One of our partner teachers is just now hosting a debate in her class about global warming. The students are looking at the different stakeholders involved in addressing global warming, and debating who should bear the most responsibility, and looking particularly at the global north-south divide. The U.S. and EU believe that the rapidly growing and carbon-spewing countries of China and India should pay their fair share of the costs and be bound to emissions caps. But these countries say that the developed countries have been the cause of global warming, and China's and India's emissions are just a fraction of this historical measure, so developed countries should bear the brunt. Caps in developing countries would halt much needed economic gains, etc., etc. So the students are left to debate and hammer out a solution that addresses the concerns of both factions of stakeholders.

What I like about this project is that it's a real world scenario, makes students look at the arguments of both sides of the coin, but in the end there is no set answer. Maybe they will come up with something better than the so-called "experts"....

I am not sure if you mean lesson plans in general, or lesson plans teaching current events. I assume you mean teching CE and not the former.

I think the best CE lessons are when you allow the students to choose their topic and when you offer plenty of opportunities to give their opinions. Indy Kids is good at offering a variety of topics (at different reading levels). I often assign students 1-2 pages to look over and choose an article from. This gives them an opportunity to read somethign they are interested in. When you have groups of students doing this, they are forced to argue why an issue is more (or less) important than another.

IndyKids doesn't produce lesson plans, but rather articles meant to raise awareness and to inspire discussion in the classroom.

I think our paper has had some powerful center spreads lately, such as child labor in the summer 2008 issue because of the photos: http://www.indykids.net/issues/pdf/indykids_iss15.pdf
and the March/April 2008 issue on wealth inequality: http://www.indykids.net/issues/pdf/indykids_iss14.pdf

The latter aims to help students understand that around the world wealth is concentrated among a small number of people and the majority are poor, and the economic and political reasons for this (as in, not smarts or how hardworking you are, as the mainstream media tends to promote). This is one of those difficult issues because there's so much to understand- colonialism, free trade, migration, etc. I'm really not sure how much students got out of this material and if this spread was effective. But when enhanced by classroom activities such as the simulations of wealth and poverty from "Rethinking Globalization": http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/12_03/wealth.shtml
or from United for a Fair Economy, I think students can come away with a new understanding that they won't easily forget and can help form the basis to understand a lot of other social justice issues.

Many thanks for a great discussion over the last two days. I am now declaring that talkin 'bout...teaching current events has officially come to an end. However, that does not mean that people can no longer post. This discussion board will remain here for a few weeks, so both panelists and participants are more than welcome to continue the conversation. What it means is that the panelists are officially released from their duties as panelists. Many thanks to Amanda, Ricky, Kelly, Jeff and John for sharing their ideas and insights with us. And thanks to all those who participated.