relating current events

One of my mentor teachers was explaining how he incorporates current events into his classes (Social Studies, Civics, History, etc). He said that his "standard" was to

A. as Social Studies teachers we have to watch the news every night
B. bring in news clips only if the topic was something students could relate to

Basically, Mr. S found very early on in his career that while a car accident that killed 10 people in Country X was a devastating thing, students are more inclined to engage in debate/discussion and offer their opinions/concerns about world issues if they could see how it would affect their little worlds. So he would bring to the table things like H1N1 or 9/11 or most currently, the pending 2010 Olympics.

I was in the class when he brought the news about the proposed BC ban on cell phones in vehicles. Awesome.

We showed the class this news story (NOTE: globaltv.com = best resource because news stories are all available the next day and are individual clips. Therefore, there is no commericals/fastforward/rewind and are roughly 2.5 minutes long so student attention is maintained) and asked them if they agreed with the new law. They all thought it was an excellent idea until we said "Well, Jane, what if your boyfriend called you about a date that night and you hadn't talked to him in 3 hours? Can you honestly say you wouldn't answer the phone?"

After turning the light that way, Jane re thought her answer and thus a raging group discussion ensued about double standards (ie: can policeman and tax drivers use them?), subjectivity (ie: what if it was an emergency? Will the police not give me a ticket if I can prove that?), and discrimination (ie: I can't use an iPod or cell phone at all just because I have my 'N'. That's not fair... some people with 10 year driving experience are worse than I am...). It was fantastic, especially looking at double standards. Anyways, here is the clip we showed and I think it's a great way of both facilitating discussions and relating to our world.




Cell Phone Ban