Mark Webber's Austin Jewish Academy Fifth Grade Class---Paula-although we are not strictly following the guidelines for time allowed in group/class discussions-My Fifth grade had some very lively classroom discussions regarding the issues in the campaign, methods used to put out the issues to the public, and their general vies regarding which media is most effective.
Now remember that I have 18 students, mostly white, mostly from affluent Jewish homes.
Their take is that the economy is definitely the number one issue, followed closely by health care and the War in Iraq.
Naturally a very strong Pro-Israeli sentiment prevails and the safety of Israel was raised after some in the class noted the story on the front page of the paper today-“Two friends-two views of Zionism”.
Other issues raised included racism in the campaign, the environment, and the War in Afghanistan.
They said that they had learned about the issues from classroom discussions, on-line sources, and many cited specifically CNN-more generally TV news.
Sad to say most did not see the newspaper as a main or primary source-and I was stunned-because we usually use the paper in some way most days in class.
And for the most part they agreed that the front page of the paper-World and Nation-should have had more stories on the election and the campaign than stories focused on state or local events-
Interesting since when we as teachers got to meet with the editor-he mentioned that newspapers were a dying breed and that one way they were trying to maintain readers was to bring a spot light to local events. Oh well-
Mark Webber