"arr writes: "Gove and his advisers - either through stupidity or mischievousness - failed to place me, my website, or the lesson into its appropriate context. His criticisms betray a lack of knowledge, understanding, and interpretation that would make a GCSE history student blush with shame.""
Students learn to read and interpret climate graphs of the rainforest using their senses- one group uses audio, another poetry, another photos, lastly one uses travel blogs.
This is the kind of learning students really dive in to, learn so much from, and never forget. How many NY State middle school and high school teachers will pass on it because they have too much to teach? The irony...
These are a set of out-of-print guides made by the NYC Board of Education in 1993-1994. They are full of primary sources, short text selections and activities which many teachers have found very useful. Although designed for 7th and 8th grade they can be modified for high school and elementary school. Many teachers have used these over the last 17 years to help them develop their lessons. They are large files so they will take a few minutes to open. Note that both sets follow the same format but the 8th grade guides were done with a modern text style and therefore "looks" much better.
Schools will punish students who do not display proper behavior, but they rarely model the right behavior, rendering the punishment useless. Social studies content allows for character exploration as a reasonable tangent, making it the social studies teacher's responsibility to incorporate it when possible.