In the midst of the upcoming preidential elections in November, politics have come to the forefront of every newspaper, tv, and smartphone. However, students noticably lack in their knowledge of major issues, the most prominent being foreign politics, which draws the question; are fcps classes providing an adequate education of international topics?
“That’s a tough question,” Government teacher Lindsay Zurawski said. “I’d like to think that after students take my class, they leave with basic knowledge of foreign leaders. However students could pick up additional knowledge going through other classes and certainly through the IB program, because it’s globally based.”
For different classes, there are always varying curriculums that allow more or less time to focus on current events, which are constantly changing. However, the leaders change at less of a quick pace.
“I think it would be impossible to have detailed knowledge of every leader and to teach all that in one year,” Zurawski said. The social studies curriculum does not offer time to look at [current] foreign leaders in every class, but some do, including Comparative Government and IB Topics.
“We need to do a great deal more on current events; we hit a few recognized names, but the world is changing fast,” history teacher John Hawes said. “We need to make space in the curriculum to know about the world’s leaders. It’s not just knowing who the leader is, it’s knowing how the countries use and elect their leaders.”
Elections in many countries are coming up, including the 2012 elections for the U.S. president and the elections for the Chinese NPC members. The governments of the U.S. and other countries are changing, which will flow through the news and spawn hundreds of stories on each topic. The news of other countries affects different regions, but the Washington D.C.–Metropolitan area is one of the most affected regions in the country.
“It affects us because of where we live, but world has become so globalized that it is beginning to affect everyone,” junior Elisha Musih said.
Apparently, students are also following current events, at least some of them.
“I follow the news pretty well and read a lot of international newspapers,” Musih said. “Generally, most students that I am affiliated with are pretty well informed.”
Some students may not feel the same as Musih, however. “Not many people know what is going on in the world, current events aren’t in most of their classes,” junior Sara Khan said. “And not many kids want to spend the time looking at the news.”
