Social studies is more than facts. Social studies is about life. It is about how people interact with each other and other things around the world. It is about how we have learned to cooperate and live peacefully. It is about how we have learned to solve our problems by wars and battles. Social studies is about learning and understanding where another culture is coming from and learning to adapt. Teaching social studies is anything, but easy with all the different stories about events that have happened. However, it is the job and the mission of the teacher: to teach social studies where children can learn.
The main focus for students is to learn. That is why they are called students. It is my .. our job to teach students, not to “worksheet” them to death or make them memorize thousands of facts for a day for a test and forget them the next. In order to do this, we, as teachers, must accommodate the many learning styles of our students. Through researching historical people and understanding where they truly come from, students could create plays or have a living history museum. Also, teachers could set up their classrooms to bring a multicultural atmosphere into the lives of those students who live around a certain type of people.
Social studies does not have to be textbook based, but that is a good place to start. There are others who know about social studies and it is helpful to gain ideas and knowledge from them, whether it is by textbooks, magazines, articles, or the internet, using reliable sources of course. Social studies is not called “book studies” because the textbook was never meant to be relied on so much to teach this subject, in my opinion. However, depending on what sources you find, they may not be reliable, such as maps on the internet or talks of famous people such as Christopher Columbus.
Social studies should be heavily integrated in the classroom from the very beginning and usually, it is, whether anyone realizes it or not. The teacher has rules or procedures posted. I believe it is a good idea for the class to create this as a whole, in order to have some democracy and not dictatorship in the classroom. Students should have responsibilities and goals to meet at the day’s end. Skills such as these should be taught and incorporated as much as possible.
However, this is not always obtainable and there are barriers in the way. Using a teacher’s critical voice is very valuable when trying to teach a subject in a way that students CAN LEARN. Students are not in school to memorize and then forget, having a faded memory of topics covered in subjects. They should be able to recall them with interest and want to learn more about them simply through the way that the teacher presents the subject. We should remember how difficult it was for us to learn certain skills and learn how to teach these better.
Social studies is a very difficult subject to teach because it is not seen as important to some people, especially authority figures in the school system. As easy as it is to say, use your critical voice and stand up for your students’ understanding and education, it is not that simple. There are hoops to jump through and requests to be given. There are so many obstacles in the world of teaching, it may not always be likely. However, I believe teachers should keep their heads held high and keep going because I believe it will all be worth it in the end.
