Three Approaches to Social Studies Teaching

Every child learns differently. There is no cookie cutter way to teach children. This includes teaching students a subject a wide and varied as social studies. In Arthur Ellis’ book Teaching and Learning Elementary Social Studies he gives readers a brief look at the teaching styles of three different elementary school teachers who feature dynamic social studies instruction in the classroom.  In the learner-centered approach the teacher facilitates learning by providing opportunities for the children to discover knowledge through a variety of mediums. In the society-centered approach the classroom is treated as a mini-democracy in which students have voice in rule making and in community projects.  Students in a society centered classroom learn about how to be good citizens by taking action in their community. In the knowledge centered approach academic knowledge is the focus. Teachers use lots of different styles of instruction to appropriate the learning of their students but they use quizzes, tests, and essays to gage learning much like most mainstream classes.

I really like a lot of the ideas that these teachers had about teaching social studies and I think that they all had excellent approaches to how they think about and teach social studies. Much like every learner is different each of the teachers featured in this book all learn differently and view different features of social studies as important. In my own classroom I would like to take bits and pieces of the way these teachers teach. Personally I really resonate with a learner-centered approach to the classroom. I think the ultimate goal of being a teacher is to help students discover a lifelong love of learning. I also agree with the society-centered approach. Teachers should encourage students to take action in their own lives and in the community. I also think that there is importance in academic knowledge. Students can make connections across time and across subjects with the help of a structured learning environment.

I see merit in all three of the approaches to teaching social studies and I believe that they make it very easy to meet the competencies for my endorsement.  The society centered approach is a great way to fulfill the competencies for civics, economics, and pedagogy. While the learner centered approach is a great way for students to learn about geography and history. I think that bits and pieces of the knowledge center approach can fulfill all of the competencies and it is essential for pedagogy.

I have been fortunate enough to see these approaches in my own life. In my eighth grade social studies class we learned about central and South America by watching videos, doing art projects, eating Hispanic food, using Spanish in our classroom. It was my teacher’s first year teaching and he was very much a learner-centered teacher.  The learner centered approach actually reminds me a great deal of how a Montessori class is run. Learning happens through student discovery. In my fifth grade class we learned about the different branches of government, we got to take turns being each of the branches and we got to debate important issue. We also tackled a current event a week as a class. This class was very much society-centered.  Finally I have had plenty of knowledge centered social studies instruction, all of the other times that I learned social studies it was always, we read the text book, we watch videos, we write papers, take quizzes and tests.

NCSS Position Statement Response

The National Council for the Social Studies is a resource for the benefit of teachers and students in the United States of America. In one of their position statements entitled A Vision of Powerful Teaching and Learning in the Social Studies: Building Social Understanding and Civic Efficacy; is to give a basic introduction of the principals of teaching and learning social studies for the purpose of instructing the future American citizens. It outlines why we should teach social studies and how to make the teaching and learning powerful.

Social Studies is more than just history, Social Studies is a group of content areas in which American citizen should be competent in if they are to make informed decisions about how to govern the country.  In order to make informed decisions in their lives American citizens need to have a background in history, civics, economics, and geography.  Citizens need history so that they can learn from the people of the fact and we can avoid making some of the disastrous decisions of the past.  Citizens need civics so that they can know how our country is run and how the government works. Citizens need economics so they can better understand government spending and they can better control their own financial spending. Finally citizens need to understand geography so that they know how all of these things are interconnected.  In order to do their jobs correctly teachers need to be instructing and teaching their students how to critically think about each of these areas as well as reflecting and revising their own beliefs as they gain more knowledge.

In order for students to actually think deeply about social studies concepts teachers need to provide opportunities for students to interact with these concepts by problem solving, discussions, debates, projects and hands on exercises. These activities can be done at any age as long as the prompting is age appropriate. This is where the state standards come into play they help teachers stay on track with what their students need to be learning to think about now so that they can build upon it late. Learning and deciding upon rules in kindergarten lead to critical thinking about laws and legislature in high school. Helping students learn these skills will help them to become good, responsible, and competent American citizens. It is our future students who will be making the big decisions about policy and government someday so why wouldn’t we want to put an emphasis on teaching social studies?

It is my hope that when I get into the classroom I will be able to help my students think critically in the 4 subject areas. The vision set by the National Council for Social Studies is one that I completely agree with. I think education in these areas is vital for the next generation of Americans and the ideas that the Council has are ones that align with the Elementary Endorsement Competencies. I for one cannot wait till I get to see students being to think critically about the different cogs in the machine that is this country and begin to understand how it works. I believe this is important for my students to become successful adults which is really the purpose of becoming a teacher.