GOD'S WORLD NEWS - Trak level (a Crew Review)

What resources do you use to talk about current events with your children? Do you listen to talk radio, search the internet, watch the nightly news? While any of those may be a starting point for a quality conversation with your child, they each also include the risk of your child seeing or hearing things you wish they had not. Emily and I have been reviewing the Trak magazine from GOD'S WORLD NEWS  (Trak is the High School level of the six different magazines available.) GOD'S WORLD NEWS also has a website for further study (you log in with your subscriber # from the magazine.) Once you log in you can choose to read the digital version of the magazine (any issue from the last 2 years), read about international news in the 'Globe Trot' area, or read Biographies of dozens of different people.

 

When we agreed to review Trak, we were only expecting the printed magazine, so having access to the online areas is a great bonus! One other nice feature of the online part of a subscription is the online map. Sometimes, I just don't remember where a country is, and this has come in handy . . . and saved me from searching for the globe or atlas.

Our subscription began with the October issue and got Emily and I talking about current events right away. For only having 32 pages, each issue packs in a lot of food for thought. I appreciated the articles as they were truly written to high schoolers. They don't assume you already know a lot about a particular subject, but they also don't talk down to you as though you aren't able to do some additional research on your own. 

An article in the October issue talked about people fleeing Syria. Emily and I had heard a little about this on the news, but the article did a valuable job off not only talking about Syria, but also talking about other people groups who have fled their homelands en-masse such as the Afghans or Iranians. With a little information about several different groups, we can now do further research with a focus. We can also be reminded of how fortunate we are to live where we do where persecution is quite limited. Some of the articles quote Scripture to give a starting point, but almost all of them give you  information to think about . . . how one person's choices affect the lives of many.

I remember reading a weekly magazine in High School during our current events class. GOD'S WORLD NEWS offers a better choice . . . reading a magazine that points you back to the Creator instead of to the lewdness of the world. I can see this magazine being helpful for families, as well as an excellent choice for co-op classes. The articles can be assigned for reading throughout the month, and then discussion, further research, and even short writing assignments could be done individually or as a group. 

For the review, we were also sent copies of the August & September issues. These allowed us to see how the magazine flows over time. We were particularly interested in the article that talked about yoga being taught in public schools as gym class. Emily & I had been discussing yoga (and it's Hindu religion ties) for several months.

Sometimes though, I just want to close my ears and STOP thinking about current events. That's another thing that is nice about Trak magazine. You can put it away for a few days. While current events are important to learn about, especially for High Schoolers as they transition into adulthood, they are not everything. You still need to keep your educational focus on first things first . . . in our house that means a focus on Christ, with a healthy dose of Math, History, Science, and quality Literature.

Here is a snippet about GOD'S WORLD NEWS from Emily (age 15):

God’s World News is a good way to learn about current news stories from a Christian perspective. It covers a wide variety of topics, including politics, sports, world news, technology, human interest, pop culture, and current trends. One good example was an article published earlier this summer about yoga being used, not just in gym, but also in classrooms to promote peace, harmony, and better thinking. The article talked about parents who are arguing against this as religious agenda in schools, as the money to do this was coming from a Buddhist group, and that, even though the schools said different, that the group was using it to push their religion. The Buddhist agreed, saying that you couldn’t be of another religion and do yoga without compromising your faith, whether or not you are a Christian. They finished the article by asking  for the readers' opinions on the matter by telling them to contact the editor. 


Trak is published 10 times a year, and costs $28 for a U.S. subscription. If you are wanting to use it in a co-op or classroom setting, there are options to get bulk discounts, either on year-long subscriptions, or on bundles of the same issue. I think $28 is a solid price for the amount of value you can get out of the magazine. Emily has been reading (& re-reading) the three issues we have received so far. It is something I feel safe handing her and telling her to go read and we will discuss it later. (This would NOT be the case for the other methods of learning about current events I mentioned at the beginning!)

I believe Trak offers a solid, safe way to read and discuss current events with your High Schooler. The time you invest in it is time well spent.

Click the banner below to read about the other age levels of GOD'S WORLD NEWS that Crew families reviewed!