TCH 347 Social Studies in the Elementary School

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Teaching Current Affairs

• TCH 347 Social Studies in the Elementary School
• Department of Education
• Shippensburg University
• Han Liu Ph.D.

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Purpose of Teaching Current Events

• Promote the habit of awareness and interests in
  current events and social problems
• Promote the learning and thinking skills
• Reading and viewing news materials
• Discriminating between important and less
  important news items
• Taking a position on issues based on knowledge
  and critical evaluation of the facts
• Predicting likely consequences in terms of
  present developments
• Help children relate school learning to life
  outside school

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Media Sources

• TV
• Internet
• Radio
• Newspaper
• Magazines
• Cartoons

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Scope of Current Affairs

• Events in
• Family
• Neighborhood
• Community
• Local district
• The state
• The nation
• The world

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Events of Social Developments

• Election/Rallies/Protesting
• Prevailing Speeches/Opinions
• Economic growth (ups and downs)
• Historical findings
• Geographical discoveries
• Scientific Technological breakthroughs

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Issues of Public Concern

• Social Justice
• Poverty
• Crime
• Gender Equality
• LawRelated Education
• Multicultural Education
• Economic Crisis
• Globalization
• Environmental degradation

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Special Events and Cultural Celebration

• National Holidays
• Independence Day
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• Festivals
• Thanksgiving
• Chinese New Year
• Special Month/Week
• Black History Month
• Conservation Week

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Controversial Issues

• Same sex marriage
• Abortion
• Prayer in school
• Affirmative Action
• Multicultural education
• Globalization
• Job outsourcing
• War on Iraq

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Kinds of Controversy

• Factual Controversy
• Definitional Controversy
• Value controversy
• Cause controversy
• Solution controversy

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Criteria to Select Events and Issues

• Education value
• Appropriateness
• Relevance
• Available information
• Available time
• Reliability
• Timeliness
• Avoid too complex issues

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Guidelines for Teaching Controversial Issues

• Only significant issues and problems
  understandable to children, and on which children
  should begin to have an opinion, should be
  selected for study in elementary and middle
  school
• Instruction materials must present differing
  points of view, discussion should includes all
  points of view, and respect for the views of
  others should be shown
• Teachers must guide learning so as to promote
  critical thinking and open-mindedness, and they
  must refrain from taking sides or propagandizing
  one point of view
• Special attention must be given to background
  factors, possible consequences of various
  proposals, the need for additional information,
  and the detection of fallacies of thinking,
  logic, and argumentation
• The importance of keeping an open mind that is,
  the willingness to change ones mind in the light
  of new information should be stressed

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Lesson Plan Development

• Develop specific goals and objectives
• Identify concepts, concept clusters, themes, and
  generalizations that relate to a social studies
  topic
• Dovetail information into different units that
  student have learned or will learn

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Class Activities for Current Affairs

• Level 1
• Routine report of events with little discussion
  or analysis
• Level 2
• Reporting is followed by discussion of the most
  interesting points without requiring any critical
  analysis
• Level 3
• Using problem-solving and critical thinking
  skills to explore the significance of the event
  or issue by reviewing supporting facts,
  considering different points of view, and
  collecting additional information (this level may
  need a independent unit)

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Class Activities for Current Affairs

• Student report on specific events
• Daily sharing period
• Talking Circle on current affairs
• Weekly spoken news reports by each student
• Mimicking television/radio newscast by role
  playing anchorperson, news reporter, editorial
  commentator, sports reporter, etc.
• Making connections between current affairs and
  knowledge learned in textbooks

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Class Activities for Special Events

• Ask students of different ethnicities to report
  their festivals and holidays
• Ask a local expert to talk about a special day to
  the class
• Have students attend a celebration of another
  culture
• Have students make a calendar of special days of
  the year
• Have students celebrate a festival by decorating
  the classroom with background information and fun
  facts displayed

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Student Projects

• Write letters to media and authorities
• Draw cartoons to illustrate events and opinions
• Simulate TV news programs
• Hold press conference
• Create posters to voice opinions on issues
• Collect data for hot social issues from various
  sources
• Initiate programs, such as a food drive

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Current Affairs Benefit Students

• Enhance and enliven instruction
• Reinforce concepts and concept clusters in
  various subject areas
• Make connections of past, present, and the future
• Bridges knowledge to real life outside of
  classroom
• Develop ability to appraise the actions and
  decisions of policy makers and political leaders
• Practice various thinking skills with concrete
  events
• Appreciate multicultural heritages

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Resources for Current Affairs

• New York Times Student Connections
• http//www.nytimes.com/learning/students/index.htm
  l
• New York Times Learning Network
• http//www.nytimes.com/learning/
• New York Times Cartoons
• http//www.nytimes.com/pages/cartoons/index.html
• Political Cartoons
• http//www.politicalcartoons.com/
• Cartoons
• http//www.cagle.com/
• New York Times Student Quiz
• http//www.nytimes.com/learning/students/quiz/
• CNN Student News
•  http//www.cnn.com/EDUCATION/
• Washington Post Kids Post
• http//www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/kidspost/orbi
  t/kidspost.html
• Parade Magazine
• http//www.paradeclassroom.com/DL/quiz.pdf
• Scholastic