Teaching Current Events: Its Status in Social Studies Today

A study addressed specific topics related to the teaching of current events through a teacher survey asking the more general question: How do social studies teachers who are members of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) teach current events in their classrooms? Questionnaires were mailed to a random, national sample of 598 members of NCSS and divided among those who indicated specific interests in elementary, middle school, or high school on their membership applications or renewals. Recent questionnaires on civic education were examined by the researchers, and a two-page survey of selected response and short answer questions asking about instruction, assessment, and evaluation strategies teachers used when teaching current events and teacher perceptions of student responses was constructed for the study. Respondents were likely to be committed to including current events in their social studies instruction. Most teachers responded that they linked current events to the topical emphasis of their current social studies instructional units by using current events to provide contemporary examples of abstract historical, social, economic, and political concepts or to illustrate the continuity of social issues over time and across cultures. A smaller group focused their current events teaching by stressing inquiry as a process and using the skills of identification of facts to recognize bias, points of view, perspectives, and exaggeration in their teaching of current events. The majority viewed teaching current events as integral to their professional obligation. (Contains 8 recommendations, 14 tables of data, 22 references, and a sample survey.) (BT)