Students are thinking big in the South Orange-Maplewood School District, where 7th graders at Maplewood Middle School are taking on topics no smaller than globalization.
MMS Principal Jerrill Adams reported that the school’s administrative team recently had the opportunity to spend an hour with 7th grade social studies students from Ms. Jackson’s classes. Wrote Adams:
“Seventh graders have been learning about globalization and its impact on the world. Students debated the pros and cons of globalization; some agree that it’s a step in the right direction and argued that globalization is helping to reduce poverty around the world, while others argued that it causes outsourcing and is reducing job opportunities for U.S. citizens. It was a delight to observe our scholars engaged in deep analysis about the economic and cultural interactions among peoples and nations around the world.”
Deep analysis indeed: One student, for example, argued that globalization was good for the world economy and could bring jobs to “lower-class workers” in developing nations. However, another student quoted Paul Wolfowitz, former President of the World Bank, who wrote, ““I like globalization; I want to say it works, but it is hard to say that when six hundred million people are slipping backwards.”
Check out photos of some of the students’ presentation by clicking on any image below:
