Duniway Middle School teachers Jeremy Hurl (left) and Tim Love spent the day at the Capitol today as part of the Civic Scholars program. The program is a statewide initiative to enhance high quality professional development in civic education for teachers. The teachers were selected by Oregon Senator Brian Boquist, representing District 12.
The day-long program covered Oregon courts and cases, the legislature and the executive branch with breakout sessions that included classroom-ready lessons, materials and ideas.
The two attended sessions that covered a post-election wrap-up with Oregon Public Broadcasting journalists Jeff Mapes and Geoff Norcross and an overview of Malheur trial with federal prosecutor Ethan Knight, as well as sessions that addressed special education, upcoming issues in the Oregon legislature, civil rights, and same-sex marriage.
“One of the biggest things I took from this today was what one of the speakers said about the role that social studies teachers play in creating an informed citizenry,” said Hurl. “It was really inspiring to think about what a huge task it is to do that.”
Love, who also teaches language arts, said he saw cross-curricular opportunities in some of the topics presented at the conference. “I thought about how emotions play such a big part in politics and how we can get kids to care about top-level journalism instead of going for the low-hanging fruit, the ‘clickbait.’
“It takes time to evaluate both sides and write and informed article, and how do we teach kids to develop that thirst and recognize credible research when they see it,” he said.
The Civics Scholars program is part of the Classroom Law Project.
02 December, 2016