[00:00:00] Kirsten: This is the Social Studies Teacher Podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm Kirsten of the Southern Teach. An educator and mom who is passionate about all things social studies.

[00:00:30] I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.

[00:00:47] Hi there, and welcome to another episode of the Social Studies Teacher podcast. This episode is all about current events and how you can utilize current events in your classroom. I think current events is [00:01:00] a great way to connect what's going on in the world around us, in our community. Around the world, in the country, in a neighboring country and put it in our classrooms in a kid friendly way for them to understand what is truly happening and how it connects to what we're learning in social studies.

[00:01:21] We're talking about in social studies. So hopefully this episode gives you some strategies for doing so. But before we get started, I want to make sure that you are subscribed to the Social Studies Teacher Podcast and the Southern Teach in general. Because I have a lot of great content coming out, and I'm so excited about it.

[00:01:39] I've got a series coming out about common US history topics that teachers usually have to teach, so it's a nice little refresher with some tips sprinkled in. So I've been starting to plan that and write that and. It's super, super exciting to be able to do all of this. And [00:02:00] if you want to stay in the know, make sure to subscribe to this channel.

[00:02:04] If you prefer to listen on the podcast, the Social Studies Teacher podcast, you could always go on Spotify or wherever you love to listen to podcasts, and you can search that name and you will find it and you can subscribe there. Or if you are a reader, you are a visual learner, you'd rather just skim the information.

[00:02:24] You can always go to the southern teach.com/blog and you will see a blog post of almost every episode that I have. There's so many different ways you can follow along, and I truly appreciate your support. So here's how this episode's gonna go. We're going to talk about why it's important to. Teach current events in the classroom.

[00:02:46] Some challenges teachers might face when talking about current events, some strategies that you can utilize, just different ways to bring them in the classroom in a meaningful way. First, we are going to talk about why current [00:03:00] events matter when we teach current events. We are telling students that the history and geography and economics and government is not just stuff that's happened in the past.

[00:03:11] It's currently in our world happening around us right now. Here's what happens when we include current events in our lessons. Students build relevance by connecting classroom learning to what's going on in the real world. They develop skills like analyzing sources, forming opinions, and even something like understanding different perspectives.

[00:03:33] They're developing empathy by learning about people beyond their own communities, and more importantly, it's developing and building citizenship skills. It's helping them become responsible and productive members of society. Even just a few minutes a week will help 'em develop those skills that'll help them be engaged critical thinkers that will stick with them for life.

[00:03:58] Of course, teaching about current [00:04:00] events isn't always super straightforward and simple. Here are some challenges that you might come across. First up, the age appropriateness. Sometimes there are some current events that are happening that are too complex or just not appropriate for your class or your group of students.

[00:04:19] They might be too sensitive, so that's why it's important to choose topics that are. Understandable by them. They understand the information, and it's not overwhelming, it's factual. It's not too opinionated, but it's something that they might be interested in. The second might be media bias. There are plenty of news sources out there that will lean a certain way or have a certain bias, and you can tell in the tone or the headlines or the wording that they're using, and so that could be an opportunity for a teachable moment where.

[00:04:51] You can talk about a bias. Do you see a certain bias? Or you might see that this particular event, the [00:05:00] author has a certain opinion, and that's a good discussion point. But it can still be a challenge when you're trying to find something neutral and factual. And the third challenge might be time, because we know that with teaching social studies, there's already not enough time in the day to teach that and all the other things that we have to do with assessments and some type of screener that has to be done in a certain window.

[00:05:23] So time is really tricky challenge, but it is something that doesn't have to take a ton of time. It could be just a quick. Three minutes, five minutes, where you talk about current events, and I actually do have a previous episode. It's called Current Events in Five. I'll make sure to link that in the description if you wanna go back and listen to it.

[00:05:42] It's a quick, easy exercise that you can do where you pick a current event topic and you go through the steps and it usually. Should take about five minutes or up to five minutes. Now, let's go into some strategies to make current events meaningful and manageable. The first idea [00:06:00] is to choose kid friendly news sources.

[00:06:03] There's plenty of things out there. There's news, ELA. Scholastic News was one of my favorite things. If your district or school has a subscription to that, you'll get monthly newsletters. I always threw that in a literacy station. When I taught ELA Social studies, it was a great tie in because it had a variety of topics, not just related to, you know, literacy, but there was science, something going on in the world with science and social studies.

[00:06:30] It was all connecting together. It was a really great cross curricular. Social studies slash math slash ELA science. It kind of incorporated all of the above and I thought it was a great kind of way to incorporate current events into stations. I speak praises about it. Another is time for kids. This is another one we had.

[00:06:52] I love this with our fifth graders because they had a lot of great, interesting articles that the kids loved, and that was also one of the [00:07:00] literacy centers that we utilized as well. There's also CNN 10, I would say this is good for grades four through eight. It's 10 minute videos. They go daily from Monday through Friday.

[00:07:11] And I believe it's through, um, it's like August through May, so it is encompassing a whole school year and you can pick, you don't have to have it on every single day, but it's usually a great way to get snippets of what's going on in the world in a age appropriate way so that kids understand if you don't really know if it would be a good fit, you could watch a couple of the CNN 10 videos and see if it might be a good fit.

[00:07:40] And maybe you just pick one or two of the CN 10 videos to show one day a week or twice a week. And it can be a really great discussion point. But the main thing to think about is choosing kid friendly sources. You don't have to go off of some big news network or anything like that and try [00:08:00] to make sure it's in a kid friendly way.

[00:08:02] There's plenty of sources that are already. Kid friendly. That's sharing current events. The second strategy is to use discussion questions after reading an article or watching a video. Ask questions like, who is affected by this event? Why is it important, and how does it connect to what we're learning?

[00:08:21] These are a great way to practice open-ended questions. It's a great discussion point without needing a whole long lecture about the background of the current event and why it's happening. It's just quick, easy. Reflection and discussion. Among the class students might have their own questions that you can talk about or have students communicate on or give different perspectives.

[00:08:43] The third strategy is to connect it with standards, find a current event and tie it into what you're currently teaching. If you're teaching about government at this time of year, find a current event that's maybe related to some type of new law or something that's [00:09:00] happening on Capitol Hill or something related to voting.

[00:09:03] Elections. If it's geography, maybe you could find some type of natural disaster or some type of geographical event that's happening around the world people may or may not know about. If it's related to culture, you could always find some type of celebration or cultural event or some type of even pop culture event that's happening.

[00:09:24] Maybe something related to sports or music. Maybe there's a. Big concert and some big singers coming to a certain area or doing a big tour, you could always find something related to what you're already talking about, tying it in, putting in like a five minute spotlight about that current event. The fourth tip is to compare perspective, so two different headlines about the same story.

[00:09:50] Or current event and have students take note of the word choice and tone. So like maybe there's some type of event [00:10:00] happening downtown in your city. One headline says Protest erupts, and another headline says, citizens March for change. Discuss that. Discuss what the author's trying to convey with their headline, and maybe just note the differences or similarities in the wording and the tone that they're using to describe the very same event.

[00:10:25] This is a great and simple exercise and activity to discuss bias and perspective. The fifth strategy is to integrate multimedia, incorporate video clips of a current event, articles, newsletters, even just a simple photograph. Using different sources of a similar or same current event can help visual and auditory learners engage more deeply.

[00:10:53] Still only takes a few minutes to do each day, and I believe there are sources like Time for Kids [00:11:00] and Scholastic News that do have video clips if you have the teacher login information. They will have an online version of their paper newsletter and you can see little video clips. They'll put something together and there's usually one or two different videos that are related to the articles in the newspaper.

[00:11:20] So those are all great ways to make it more manageable for multiple learners in your classroom. The last part of this I wanted to make sure to touch on is when you are talking about current events. Making sure you take the time to reflect with your students. You can ask students questions like, how does this impact our community?

[00:11:43] Or how does it affect people in different parts of the world? And also making sure to take this home, whatever you're talking about, whatever current event you talk about, tell them to talk about it with their family. It could be a really great dinner table discussion and [00:12:00] to kind of connect, you know, spark discussions about what's going on in their world.

[00:12:04] And they're also usually parents, family members, siblings, might also be aware of the same things happening, same current events happening. So it's just a great talking point and something that they could take home to talk about even further with their family. And it's always important to continue emphasizing checking sources and asking questions and thinking critically so that they could be great digital citizens, and really using those skills to help them become productive members of society and staying informed of what's going on around them.

[00:12:39] I personally know that in my twenties and my teens, I always was. Saying, you know, I'm not really interested in politics. It's not really interesting to me. But over time I've learned that it is important to stay informed. Politics is not my favorite thing to learn or [00:13:00] talk about or see, but it is something that does ultimately affect a lot of members in our country and our society.

[00:13:09] And so I do want to keep tabs of what certain elected leaders are doing and who's running and who might be agreeing or disagreeing and just, it's something I have come to appreciate over time. And while it's still not my favorite thing to really read up upon and talk about, I'd rather much. You know, I have my junk shows that I like to watch and my pop culture stuff like, you know, that kind of thing.

[00:13:35] I love history stuff, but I do really do appreciate knowing and just being on top of certain current events. I don't wanna just put the wool over my head and not really think about it. It's not really gonna help the situation. It is important to stay informed about important issues that's happening that could potentially affect me and my family.

[00:13:59] [00:14:00] So to wrap this up, teaching current events is a really great way for students in your classroom to be aware of and understand the world around them. It's also a way to teach students that social studies and history and geography, all of those different things are not just things that we learn about in a textbook or online or in a video, and that's, you know, just how it was in the past.

[00:14:23] It's something that's currently happening to us. Today all the time with all the different current events and news happening around us, even short structured routines can make a big difference. So I have a challenge for you today. Write this down or just make sure you remember. Pick a current news event that is happening right now that is kid appropriate, something that your students might be interested in.

[00:14:50] Maybe it's a big football game, or some type of story that is either directly related to your community, [00:15:00] or could be just world news. Pick a current event, whatever it is. It could be tied into what you're already talking about, but I want you to do that. Pick the, sorry, I'm like rambling because. I'm trying to give examples.

[00:15:12] I'm trying to help you out here, but pick a current event and share it with your students. Bring it in your classroom. You could either find a video, read an article, find a kid, friendly source, share it with your class and discuss. Don't take more than three to five minutes. You can do more if you want.

[00:15:32] Have students ask questions or just kind of let it naturally flow. You'll be able to see how your students engage and how they actually might get interested. Some students may know about the current event. They know everything about it, and they have their own opinions about it. Some students kind of heard something they thought, you know, they didn't really understand what was going on, and some may not know at all what's going on.

[00:15:54] They're like, I've never heard of this before. What are you talking about? I've never heard it. So [00:16:00] it's interesting to see and gauge what students already know about it and. Just getting them informed about the event in general. Alright, well that is all we have for today. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and I will talk to you next time.

[00:16:20] Thanks for listening to this Social Studies teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the Southern Teach. I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode for more teacher tips and strategies.