Current Events is NOT a Thing of the Past...

Once upon a time, teachers used to compel students to bring in newspaper clippings and we'd all take turns summarizing the story. Some teachers kept bulletin boards of those clippings and others asked their students to keep journals or scrapbooks. There was always some sort of learning attached to this literacy event - summary writing, learning to recount or retell, or even simply writing a news report ourselves. I worry that students don't talk about what's going on in the world around them. I wonder if our kids could make sense of these editorial cartoons:

(Could our students understand the humour behind this cartoon? Can they articulate why this is relevant to them?)

(Do our kids really understand what's going on? Do they understand the meaning of words like "pandemic"? Do they possess the necessary health literacy to navigate the health care system?)

(When hasn't this issue been in the news? Do our students understand the implications of what the Pope is saying? What it means to the historical context of this story?)

Why rely so heavily on textbooks when the world itself is providing the content that we can use to teach our students necessary and relevant skills to live in it?

I'm not suggesting returning to the age-old practice of cutting and pasting. This is neither relevant to our students nor effective for our teaching. All I'm saying is that the news should play an active role in our programming and course work so that real-life connections can be made on a regular basis. Admittedly, I'm pretty disturbed that some teachers are STILL asking kids to cut and paste articles, summarize them and expect students to understand that they have just acquired some pretty important skills. Let's keep it real...

Something to chew on...

Thanks to my colleague, Leslie Burchat (whose blog you all have to check out!), I learned about a new website today called World Mapper (www.worldmapper.org). It's an online collection of maps that can be reshaped and distorted depending on which factors or variables are being researched.

For example...


This map reflects global youth literacy. According to the website:

Most of the young people living in most territories can read and write. Only five territories have lower than 50% youth literacy rates. Four of these five are in Northern Africa. Japan recorded the highest rate of youth literacy for a single territory.The highest number of literate youth live in Eastern Asia, where the youth literacy rate is 98.9%. Of the 12 regions, 8 have youth literacy rates of over 95%.

This map shows global adult literacy. World Mapper reports:

The percentage of literate adults is lower than that of literate youth in every region of the world. The biggest differences are 17% in Northern Africa, 13% in Central Africa, and 11% in Southeastern Africa. The smallest difference between youth and adult literacy rates is 1% in Japan.The largest populations of literate adults live in China, India and the United States. India has a literacy rate of 61%, the other two territories have rates of 91%.

These maps just scratch the surface. There are so many other variables that you have students investigate and the map will stretch and distort accordingly. The obvious benefactors are students in taking geography - especially World Issues. This is quite a nifty tool to get some really interesting critical literacy discussions happening. These maps are great visuals that can be used to talk about the influence of power relations, gender, race, class and identity in relation to any number of the factors that can be mapped on this website. I love this!