Helen Thomas, news correspondent! Another figure in the media well worth studying. Students should follow her line of questioning and her willingness to be “impolite!”  A very forceful and important woman ! When asked by the president what she wanted for her birthday , she stated clearly and firmly, ” World peace and health care reform!”

Helping younger students come to grips with the environment is more about action than “re-action” to news of gloom and doom. Younger students ( through fourth grade) really need to be engaged with their environment. When they enter middle school, they will be better prepared to understand the science of our environmental needs and be in the mode of DOING already. At that point ,they can , of course become important and informed advocates in their schools, homes and communities. For young students I love this site because bugs and the love of the earth is such a basic part of growing up. And the ‘helper’ bugs, like these are so wonderful to  incorporate into young children’s lives. I hope you’ll take a minute to consider the project and maybe it will inspire one of your own!http://www.lostladybug.org/ In the series , Americans Who Tell the Truth, the portrait of Rachel Carson inspires us as adults to live up to our responsibility in connecting young people with the natural world before they grow up and out of the stage of wonder. This responsibility has become even more important in our times.  Here is a video created for a school project by a tenth grade student featuring a biography and footage of Rachel Carson speaking.

Students could use this article as a basis for discussion but it also serves as an excellent example of what we all need to be doing: really questioning the “news” and who delivers it. A classic example is give here and then more on cited as the writer goes through his research. What research could students do as a follow up? Are we teaching our kids to be researchers, participants or recipients of the news?  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/taboo-alert-the-real—an_b_249830.html   A journalist and writer named Studs Terkel is featured in the Americans Who Tell the Truth series. I like using his work with students because the essence of his “reporting” was living in the real lives and stories of people. He speaks with eloquence about why he believed his interviews were so successful. Essentially , he believed it was his own humility and humanity that allowed him to connect and know others. I love using this biography and study to help children understand that the “news” is a story. And the truth of the story lives in the biography of each one of us. It is our INTEREST in one another that makes it work. Studs Terkel was a sterling living example of that principle.

The title of the article: Anger Has Its Place .Note: In addition to this piece being important to the discussion because it introduces another unexamined aspect of the event, it demonstrates the significance of presenting students with as many points of view about an event as possible. Doing this in our current media atmosphere is not easy. Mainstream media does not offer much variety in that regard. Fox News and MSNBC often offer opposing views and those are well worth studying, however, beyond what is in the mainstream there are many other sources. In my next post, I am going to put up portraits of those that have been painted thus far and resources you can use in your classroom to give students the opportunity to gather information in new ways.On to the article…. I feel like this article adds another dimension and incredbily important missing aspect to the discussion than the other pieces I have posted. What is the role of anger in the case of injustice and what does this look like in student’s lives? If you work with students who are not in a position to understand this type of anger, it is perhaps even more important that they consider this.  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/opinion/01herbert.html .