Get Rid of the Books, Bring in the Newspapers

Native American children need to make the connections between the world of the classroom and the world in which they live. One way to accomplish this readily is to use the daily newspapers to teach students. Newspapers in Education is a national effort on the part of large and small daily papers to utilize newspapers in our schools. They offer workshops for teachers and assist in finding sponsors to pay for the papers. In some states, newspapers can be bought with money set aside for textbooks. That’s a great way to improve education. Newspapers in Education offers an abundance of material for every school and every subject.It takes little imagination to see the interactive dynamics between students and newspapers. In the first place, almost everything in the paper relates to the real world. All children can relate to news events, political figures, sports, food and car ads, and the want ads. Even the comics often speak truths of daily life. In the second place, the newspaper has so much of interest in it that fires up student imaginations. Finally, the teacher can do amazing teaching with newspapers. Take the typical newspaper food ads.Every child goes regularly to the supermarket. That is one true fact of daily life. Teachers can use those ads to teach mathematics (adding, subtracting, multiplication, and division), budgeting (you have $40 for one week’s supply of food), nutrition and health (consider low-fat, low cholesterol, non-red meat alternatives, consider the food pyramid), planning (making the money last the week while eating well), and encouraging student creativity (let’s mix some of this product with some of that product to make up some new product that is healthy for us), and real life skills (making sure that you are not overcharged, taking advantage of sales and coupons, buying in quantities, learning to read food content labels, and getting correct change).