At ANCS, our teachers strive to make learning interesting and relevant for our students, like the elementary class that researched, designed, and proposed different uses for the vacant Turner Field property or the 8th grade project where students don’t simply learn the principles of physics but apply them by creating their own rocket racers to compete against one another for speed and distance. Sometimes, though, the relevance for a lesson or project isn’t drawn from what a teacher thinks will help students make a connection to what she already intended to teach for that day but comes instead from happenings in the “real world” that are likely already commanding attention from students. This past week offered two very different examples of how current events can become woven into the classroom.
The rally, protests, and attack in Charlottesville and their aftermath rightfully dominated much of the news last week. As students prepared to return to school on the Monday following the tragic weekend in Charlottesville, both of our principals shared resources with teachers to help prepare them for talking about the events should they come up among students (which, not surprisingly, they did for many students). As the week went on and the story continued to develop in different ways—such as the call by some locally to address Confederate names and symbols in and around Atlanta—several of our middle campus teachers collaborated on ways to facilitate discussion on these topics with our students, to engage them in thinking critically about big questions swirling all around them. A local education blogger posed, “Are teachers discussing Charlottesville, Confederate monuments in class? Should they be?” In my mind, the answer is “Of course they should!” A significant national event and conversation, just because it has some controversy or sensitive material associated with it, should not be avoided in school; in fact, one could argue, avoiding diving into these issues is precisely one of the reasons why we have such struggle with race among adults in our country. Of course, our teachers take care to handle these discussions in ways appropriate to the age and maturity of students, but just skipping over what happened in Charlottesville because it’s hard to talk about or because we had a lesson on algebra or analyzing a book already planned would be abdicating our responsibilities as educators “to help students learn to use their minds well.”
Heading into this week, lots of energy was building for the solar eclipse, an almost once-in-a-lifetime event for many of our students. With time to anticipate and plan for this event, we ordered eclipse glasses for all students and teachers planned a day of activities related to understanding the science and the mythology of eclipses. The excitement was palpable as I walked into school Monday morning, and at both campuses the eclipse viewing and the learning that accompanied it was clearly a big deal to students and teachers.
Though we talk about making learning “relevant” for students, too often schools miss—intentionally or not—opportunities to explore big events or guide our students through meaningful conversations about thorny issues happening in the “real world” because it won’t be on a state test at the end of the year or because we are afraid of what might come up. But by making time for and thoughtfully planning activities for our students on two very different topics in the past week, they’ll long remember what they learned.