A half century ago, I watched Richard Nixon plunge the U.S. into a constitutional crisis. Now I wonder if American democracy will survive Donald Trump. Former U.S. President Donald Trump as he spoke to supporters from the Ellipse at the White House in Washington on 6...
Fewer than four decades ago, an emerging China joined its first Olympic Games. Like today, geopolitics loomed large at the Los Angeles event. Members of the Chinese Olympic team line up before the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, 28 July...
My generation was born after 9/11. Twenty years after that day, the attacks resonate with us, but we need historical context to grasp why they occurred. People walk past yellow roses and flags placed on the names of 9/11 victims who were veterans, at the 9/11 Memorial...
Trump’s administration launched a sea change in U.S.-China relations. Is Joe Biden raising the stakes in taking tough action against China? U.S. President Joe Biden at the NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, 14 June 2021 (EPA Photo/Kenzo Tribouillard). President...
Aaron Carroll’s job is to persuade Americans to get their COVID-19 shot. His technique? To listen and provide solid information. American singer Dolly Parton receives a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine whose research she helped fund, Nashville, Tennessee, 2 March...
Ping-pong players paved the way for a thaw in relations between China and the U.S. in the early 1970s. I witnessed this pivotal moment in history. Flanked by Chinese border officials, Glen Cowan, a member of the U.S. ping-pong team, waves to newsmen at Lowu, China,...
News Decoder’s correspondents have covered many of the biggest international stories of the past half-century, offering our students an unparalleled historical perspective on complex global events. Jonathan Sharp has tapped his rich professional adventures time and again for News Decoder, producing yarns about covering the Vietnam War and showing U.S. actress Shirley MacLaine around Beijing. In his latest article, Sharp recounts witnessing a pivotal moment in China-U.S. relations in 1971, when a team of U.S. ping-pong players visited China, paving the way to a thaw in relations between the two nations. Sharp skillfully mixes personal anecdotes with an impartial look at history to transport students born more than a generation after the “transformative moment” back in time.
Exercise: Ask each of your students to speak to at least one parent to identify a moment in their youth when they witnessed an important event. After interviewing the parent, the student should write an article mixing the parent’s viewpoint in the first person with third-person background and explanation.
Most Americans want schools to teach about global warming. But skeptics and lack of teacher training make it hard to implement climate change education. Students learn about water filtration as part of their climate literacy curriculum in Portland, Oregon, 30 January...
Climate deniers have lost the political high ground in the United States, but the struggle to combat global warming has only just begun. Lucy Jaffee of La Jolla Country Day School explores why teaching about climate change can help reduce carbon emissions, but also why U.S. schools are having such a hard time fostering climate literacy. She interviewed a local expert and two teachers in her examination of the challenges schools face in meeting the expectations of parents who want climate change in the curriculum. Ask your students to explore how climate change is being taught in their school, and if not, why not?
Prisoners run a newspaper from inside a California jail. The monthly raises awareness of social justice issues and offers a new chance to convicts. Jonathan Chiu (Photo by Christie Goshe) This story won a third prize in News Decoder’s Ninth Storytelling Contest....
Elena Towsend-Lerdo introduces us to a convicted murderer who finds redemption at a newspaper run by prisoners in California’s oldest jail. The San Quentin News is online and accessible to readers around the world. Townsend-Lerdo interviews Jonathan Chiu, who was released after serving 16 years of his 50-year sentence, and a journalism professor who trains prisoners, providing first-hand insight into incarceration and rehabilitation. Those are meaty issues, but the student at La Jolla Country Day School avoids sweeping statements to offer us a peek into the U.S. criminal justice system and a unique path to atonement. Who could your students interview to learn about criminal justice?
COVID-19 left me in limbo in the United States, full of fear and anger. Then I returned home to China to face criticism before reuniting with my family. An empty John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York (All photos by Jasmine Li) So this is where I am going...
The coronavirus pandemic has put strains on students, their families, schools, entire communities. But Jasmine Li, a Chinese student at Westover School in the United States, provides a first-person account of the special difficulties facing foreign nationals caught in limbo as COVID-19 triggered global travel restrictions. Li cannot return to her temporary home at school, and when she finally makes it home to China, she discovers some compatriots consider her a traitor and urge her to leave. Adolescence can be a difficult period of self-discovery, but Li’s painful experiences are the product of a globalized world that, in normal circumstances, offers extraordinary opportunities but which, during a pandemic, sees forgotten borders re-emerge. Ask each student to describe their most difficult moment during the pandemic. How do their experiences compare?
In 2016, students from a U.S. school near Mexico worried about Donald Trump. Today, one of the youths and their ex-teacher find hope in Joe Biden. Gabriella Rivas and Charlotte Parker in 2016 Gabriella Rivas in 2020 In 2016, after Donald Trump was elected U.S....