Welcome to the Current Events Online Teaching Center! Here you'll find all the information you've come to rely on from your Teacher's Guide, now in a convenient online format. Click the tabs above to access article background information, reproducible skills pages, and additional resources. The boxes at right will take you to subscriber-only content, including interactive digital editions, archives, and your teacher's guide in a printable PDF format.

This year's final issue features the winner of our annual Eyewitness to History contest—a first-hand account of life in South Africa during apartheid. To read the complete essay and those of our two runners-up, click here. To find previous issues, scroll down or click the All Issues tab above.

Thank you for subscribing to Current Events for the 2011-2012 school year. Have a fantastic summer!

Be sure to check out CE's second online-only Special Report, "Understanding Islam." The world's second-largest religion often makes headlines. Yet students most likely have misconceptions about Islam. Our Special Report answers 10 basic questions about the religion to help students better put the news in context. It also includes vivid images and interactive elements to help bring to life Muslim history and traditions. Check it out here.

Click here for the Issue 20 answer key.

Please feel free to contact us at edce@weeklyreader.com with any questions, comments, or concerns.

Objectives
Main News: Students will learn about apartheid in South Africa by reading this year’s winning essay in CE’s Eyewitness to History Contest.
News Debate: Students will be able to conduct an informed debate about whether school officials should be able to monitor students’ online activities outside of school.

Standards
COMMON CORE STATE STANDARD
Main News: Determine the central ideas of a primary or secondary source.

SOCIAL STUDIES (NCSS)
Main News: Time, continuity, and change
News Debate: Individuals, groups, and institutions

Language Arts (NCTE)
Main News: Students read to gain a better understanding of the world.
News Debate: Students draw on prior experience to interpret text.

Geography (NCGE)
Main News: How to apply geography to interpret the past

Social Studies Vocabulary
Nelson Mandela; African National Congress

Skills Builders
Page 3: Comprehension Skills
Page 4: News Crossword

PREVIOUS ISSUES

Issue 1: Game Over?

Issue 2: Always Remember

Issue 3: Got Work?

Issue 4: In Our Galaxy Far, Far Away

Issue 5: Cyberbullying Crackdown

Issue 6: Three Women for Peace

Issue 7: Republican Rumble

Issue 8: Hit Men

Issue 9: War Worries

Issue 10: The War's End

Issue 11: Russia Un-United?

Issue 12: A Fight for Democracy

Issue 13: Dot-Com Revolt

Issue 14: Big Snakes

Issue 15: Coming Apart

Issue 16: Hunger Pains

Issue 17: War of Words

Issue 18: Pumped Up

Issue 19: Final Say

Separate and Unequal

Get Talking
Have students find South Africa on a map. Then have them locate Cape Town, the first South African city colonized by Europeans. Ask: Why might the Dutch have established the city as a port?

Notes Behind the News
• Dutch traders established the first European settlements in South Africa in 1652. The descendents of European settlers, who hailed from different countries, became known as Afrikaners. They speak Afrikaans, a language derived from 17th-century Dutch. Early Afrikaners subjugated the native black African population; they owned slaves and took part in the slave trade.
• The discovery of diamonds in the region in 1870 attracted British settlers as well as immigrants from other areas of Africa. In 1910, Afrikaner settlements were united to become a self-governing dominion of the British Empire called the Union of South Africa. The independent government granted political power only to whites. In 1948, the government, controlled by the National Party (NP), began enforcing racial separation through stricter laws, collectively known as apartheid—an Afrikaans word meaning separateness. The NP continued passing such laws after South Africa became an independent republic in 1961.
• During the 27-year (1964–1990) imprisonment of civil rights activist Nelson Mandela, antiapartheid protests erupted in South Africa and around the world. In the 1980s, Mandela began secretly corresponding with sympathetic members of the government. Both the protests and Mandela’s work helped convince members of the NP government that it was time to change.

Doing More
• As a class, read Nelson Mandela’s1993 Nobel Peace Prize speech (tinyurl.com/77uyd48). Discuss what he meant when he said: “These countless human beings … recognized that an injury to one is an injury to all and therefore acted together in defense of justice and a common human decency.”

Password Protected

Get Talking
Ask: If you post a message on a social networking site, who do you expect will read it? Does a school have the right to punish students for things they do outside of class?

Notes Behind the News
• The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing Minnewaska Area Middle School in Glenwood, Minn., which required a student to tell authorities her Facebook password. The ACLU alleges that the school violated the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, and the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against unlawful searches and seizures.
• Many schools base their off-campus discipline policies on a 1969 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, involved students who were suspended from school for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War (1957–1975). The Court ruled that the students should not have been suspended for expressing their opinions. However, it also said that schools could punish students for off-campus behavior that either seriously disrupted school life or was an invasion of the rights of others. That guideline became known as the Tinker standard.
• The Court based two rulings on the Tinker standard in the 1980s. In the 1986 case Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, the Court ruled that a school could censor unpopular or controversial views in schools if the purpose was to teach students the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior. In Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988), the Court established a school’s right to censor language that could associate the school with matters of political controversy.

Doing More
• Divide students into three groups. Have each group research one of the above Court cases and present their findings to the class. They should include the facts of the case, the arguments of each side, and the ruling.
• Using the Tinker standard, discuss as a class the situations in which a school might be justified in reprimanding students for their behavior outside of class.

Click here for the issue's answer key.

Test students' comprehension with this activity. 

Be sure to try this issue's crossword. 

And don't miss this issue's Smart Stuff. 

Teaching Centers and Issue Dates, 2011-2012

Senior Managing Editor: Clara Colbert
Editor: Maggie Mead 
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