BY ALEXA BARRETT
As high school students, we spend such a large portion of each day bogged down with work, extra-curricular activities, studying, sports and friends that it can be hard to leave time for anything else. We can easily forget that we are living amidst a plethora of notable occurrences; important affairs are happening around the world every day that will someday be marked down in history books. But juxtaposed with our own busy lives, these events often seem less important. In order to be better informed about our world today, I believe current events should be a required part of every social studies curriculum at Mamaroneck High School.
Many people worry about the youth of our country not being informed enough about current world issues. We spend so much time immersed in other activities that it becomes difficult to watch the news at night, or read a newspaper. By making these important events a part of our schoolwork, it requires us to cut time out of our busy schedules and pay attention to the world around us. Knowledge about the world we live in is a top priority as we grow closer to being part of the generation who controls this country and this earth. How are we expected to learn from the mistakes of the people in power before us if we aren’t paying them any attention?
Claire Saporito ’14 is another supporter of a curriculum requiring current events. “We need to know what’s happening now; we need to be aware of the current issues in the world because it makes us more knowledgeable as a student body and as a society.”
After talking to a few teachers, it seems to me that the biggest obstacle hindering the incorporation of current events into Regents curriculas like global history (both 9th and 10th grade) is time. History teachers are already forced to rush through each topic in order to reach the end of their curricula by June. Most social studies teachers are in favor of including current events in their curriculas but just don’t feel that they have enough days to do so. Of course, I have to agree that the schedule is already tight; it would be impossible to expect something like one day a week devoted to current events, no matter how important the topic is. After all, we only have four classes per week in the first place. Given this, I think the most logical solution is to devote only two days per quarter to current events. This makes a total of only 8 fewer classes spent on the current curriculum per school year.
The work to prepare for this class would not be too heavy a burden; all a student would need to do to be ready for a current events class is bring in an article he/she has made him/herself acquainted with. Students would be given a chance to speak about their articles for just a couple of minutes each. Even these brief summaries would give students the opportunity to broaden their knowledge of current world affairs, something every social studies teachers knows is vital. Though we might have to cut a few aspects of the current curriculum short in order to make this tight schedule work, we will still be ready for final exams, and the knowledge we gain through the changes will definitely be worth it.
