Clapp points out that there is no textbook for the Contemporary Issues course. This is not so much from the difficulty of finding a textbook covering such a wide ground, as from the desire to wean students from textbook learning and introduce them to a broader way of mastering topics. Students have to read the articles and write summaries. When speakers come in on banking or the stock market, students have to take notes and hand them in. That's more like real life and it is also more college-oriented.
Students have to learn research methods and time management.
The team that teaches Contemporary Issues to Bloomfield's approximately 150 seniors is as diverse as the topics covered in the course. Besides Clapp, who is a teacher of the gifted and talented, it includes special education teacher Gwynn Adams, family and consumer science teachers Karen Waltman and Dianne Chauvin, English teacher Joshua Smith, social studies teacher Lois McGuire, and business education teacher Rose DeAngelis. That is good for both students and teachers, because teachers from various disciplines bring different life interests and perspectives to the work. Each year we refine it. We did a survey last year and 84 percent of the students said to keep it as a requirement for seniors.