From the Classroom: Exploring Current Events

Could you find Syria on a map? Could you name its president? Do you know about the violent, oppressive regime’s attacks upon protesters? What about your students?

Before this week, none of my fifth grade students knew any of these things. But after exploring news stories, having meaningful discussions, and asking a lot of questions (not to mention the help of a friend), they have a much greater understanding of recent events in Syria and, more importantly, a greater sense of empathy for people thousands of miles away in a country very different from our own. Our driving question for this exploration is “Why should we care about Syria?”

Before I tell the story, I have to back up a little and introduce my friend Steve Goldberg. In another one of those serendipitous stories of the power of the Personal Learning Network, Steve and I “met” via twitter after I discovered his awesome blog, What I Learned Today. Steve is opening a middle school in North Carolina in 2013 and he often blogs about the progressive and student-centered approach that this middle school will offer. One of the ideas of his I like the most is his approach to current events. I told him how much I liked this and he generously offered to Skype into my classroom and lead a discussion about a news story.

We settled on the topic of Syria after Steve shared with me the story of Anthony Shadid, a reporter for the New York Times who recently died of an asthma attack while covering the oppressive Syrian regime’s brutal response to citizen protests.

My fifth graders, not surprisingly, had never heard of Syria nor of Shadid. But I prepped them on Monday for Steve’s Skype visit the next day by leading a discussion of the story of Shadid’s death. We got to know the geography of Syria using Google Earth and learned some background info about the situation there. They asked a lot of good questions, many of them centered around the idea of a journalist risking his life to cover a story. (Shahid had been shot and kidnapped in separate incidents earlier in his career.) They found this surprising. Why would covering the news be worth dying over?

Steve “arrived” Tuesday morning and a great discussion about Syria ensued. (We were so engrossed with the topic that we didn’t even make it to talking about Shahid.) The kids were really engaged and I was quickly able to see firsthand how much powerful learning can occur by discussing current events.

Even though we didn’t get to Shahid, there was no shortage of learning. They were surprised by many of the things Steve shared with them–Syria’s president runs unopposed in every election, he orders bombings of his own citizens, and Syria is a place where tanks sometimes roll through the streets.

Could this happen in America? Why don’t Syrians move somewhere else? Why can’t they turn in the president to authorities? Why would he kill his own people? What’s so wrong with protests that make the president of Syria mad enough to kill people? These were just some of the questions that were asked. Not all of them were answered–we certainly could have kept talking for another 45 minutes–but the fact that they were asked is impressive. So were some of their answers, connections and other comments.

I was especially proud when some of my quieter students spoke up. I think there were even goose bumps involved.

I will admit to being a bit hesitant to tackle such a complicated topic. My students and I had done some preliminary exploration of current events since the start of 2012. But nothing as intense as the situation in Syria. I worried that they were too young, too inexperienced, and lacked the background knowledge necessary to do justice to such a topic. I shared these concerns with Steve ahead of time and he reassured me that all would go well and that even if students were “lost” that was nothing to be afraid of. He turned out to be 100 percent correct. My students handled the topic with aplomb. And it turned out to be a learning experience for me, too. Sometimes you just have to be a little brave and have faith in your students.

I also learned how to teach for hours using one news story and a couple of computers. Geography, history, writing, reading (we even did math!)…you can cover it all. Most important to me, though, was that they were THINKING.

I can’t wait for Steve to visit again. Neither can my students. We’re going to continue our exploration and hopefully collaborate with experts to produce a student guide to the events in Syria. Stay tuned for updates. And consider joining us by learning about Syria, too. Maybe we could make a collaborative project out of this.

Please check out Steve’s blog post about his Skype visit, too. It’s fun to read the viewpoint of the person on the other side of the camera.

I also can’t wait to try his approach to current events on my own. There’s no shortage of stories out there, that’s for sure.