In the midst of the Egyptian Revolution, JJ asked, “How do you integrate breaking news into your school day? Do you put lesson plans on hold and devote the day to a discussion of freedom, rights and civil action? Or do you integrate it in, but limit it so as not to overwhem the kids?”
We don’t have any live TV being pumped into the house, so all our breaking news comes in online. This makes it a lot easier to moderate (or modulate) the news. They can’t just turn on the TV and see protesters being run over by police vans or villages burning or women weeping in the streets. While I think these are important images for us to see, I think that most news channels tend to hyper-focus on a handful of shocking images for the sake of sensationalism, rather than present a broader picture of what’s happening. As an aside, this is one reason why I have come to value Al Jazeera English — no histrionic fear about Islamists, no “pro-Western to the exclusion of all other” viewpoints, multiple perspectives.
We don’t interrupt our lessons for breaking news under most circumstances. I try to give the children the security of routine. Upsetting news is hard enough to hear without throwing off the schedule on top of it. Additionally, not all upsetting news falls within the purview of topics my children need to know about. A revolution in Egypt (which sparked this question) is something I want them to hear about. Police officers being killed on the job? Horrible things happening to children? I’d rather preserve their innocence a little longer.
One big reason why I don’t cancel our regular school plans for news is that I’d rather awareness of local, national, and global happenings be viewed as part of the normal course of life. I don’t want them to wait until special events to engage. I don’t want them to be drawn to the news because of crisis, but because they’re invested in what’s happening in their world. We don’t turn off the news or stop discussing it when they’re around. We also don’t sit them down in front of it and say, “Here. Watch this.” It’s integrated into our lives. Interest in current events should be a regular thing. I will call attention to certain topics of interest, such as initiating discussion with them about the Egyptian revolution, because I know they’re hearing the adults talk about it and should have a broader context for it.
If you wait to talk about civil rights or political unrest until they’re upon you, you’ve missed a lot of golden opportunities for discussion. I try to engage my children in these kinds of conversation on at least a semi-regular basis, because I want them to know my views, to understand what the opposing views are, to look more deeply into the motivations of both sides, to develop educated opinions of their own, and simply to grow up with the knowledge that just because they’re white, middle-ish class, and male, with all the intrinsic privilege that comes with that, it doesn’t mean everybody has it so easy…or that they will always have it so easy. They need to know that people may one day treat them differently, even badly, because of a difference of belief, background, or biology. They need to know that there is no perfect political system, that things don’t always stay the same, that the world is in a constant state of change and movement.
There’s also the element of filtering the news for myself. I’ve scaled back my own news watching over the last two years, because I really stopped being able to handle the “police officer killed” stories. Oddly enough, I am a regular reader of Officer Down, because I do feel it’s important to know what risks are out there for my officer, but the format (a police, formal report, not a drama-filled and/or morbid newscast) is more comforting. I get a little obsessed and even a little worked up over horrible things happening to people, especially when I know there is very little I can do to help. I try to limit myself to a few trusted news sources, only x amount of time spent mulling over one topic, only a handful of blog posts or Tweets or FB status updates about a topic. Uncertainty about the world is difficult for me. I like everything to be neatly wrapped and everyone to be safe and happy. The news puts too big a dent into my pretty pink and blue thoughts!
Anyway, that’s how the [Smrt] Homeschooler treats breaking news. We watch and learn, but not to the exclusion of our normal lessons. How about you? How do you integrate breaking news into your school day?
