Keeping Up With The Current Events

Another day, another new teaching experience! Today in class myself and a partner presented a lesson on current events.  We used an article from Newsela that discussed women in Pakistan who are not receiving appropriate education and what Michelle Obama is doing to help this issue. We had our peers debate the question "Is education important for everyone, including women?"  One side of the room was arguing for equal education, while the other side played the role of traditional Pakistanis and argued against women having the right to an education.  Prior to moderating this debate we went over the article and the rules and skills that are active when having a debate.  This was the first time I was involved in a debate or created one, so it was a new experience for me as well!  I enjoyed the lesson and feel that it was helpful for people to better understand the article. The reason for this is because in order to support their claims, they had to find evidence and facts in the text to back them up.  I would love to have a debate in my classroom one day.  I think it is an effective way for students to force themselves to see situations from someone else's point of view, like the people who had to pretend to be Pakistani.  It is a wonderful learning experience and am glad that we were able to do it with our peers!  Here is the link to the presentation that we used for our current event lesson!  We also used the chance to show our class about a wonderful sixteen year old girl from Pakistan who has been been bravely standing up for girls and women in her country for years.  Her name is Malala Yousafzia and she was eleven when she first started speaking out about women and girls' rights to education.  Since then she has been shot three times and attacked several others, both physically and verbally.  Her dedication and bravery was noticed when she won several awards for what she has done, including a Peace Prize and Global Citizen Award!  I was glad that we were able to make this connection for our classmates, there are also articles about Malala on Newsela!