Ideas about becoming a social studies teacher - 0 views
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Sadly, much too often, social studies courses are regarded as relatively unimportant subject matter, whether in elementary school, middle school, or high school. This perception leads to diminished attention paid to social studies as a serious subject area, yet in the overall development of the intellect of students, no other subject matter content holds as much promise.
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James Leslie on 02 Sep 09Social studies is more importan than many people think.
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"I think we include social studies in the curriculum for the wrong reasons. It doesn't help us avoid the mistakes of the past, and if voting turnout is an indicator of good citizenship, it doesn't have much to do with that either. Social studies is probably best understood as an organized way of helping students develop understandings and appreciations that have long-term staying power, and that will influence them in positive ways to do the right thing when doing the right thing is hard to do."
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First, you must understand the content of the social studies at a level appropriate to that which you intend to teach. To understand content means more than mere memorization of facts. To understand content for a teacher means that you can explain it in more than one way to others, whether the content concerns facts, generalizations, principles, themes, and so on.
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Second, you must be able to translate the content you so understand to make it learnable, interesting, and challenging for students at the age and grade level you are teaching. It requires rearranging what you know. This applies to social studies more than any other content area simply because social studies as a discipline lacks any widely agreed-upon structure.
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Third, you must consider pedagogy. This means that you not only understand the content in more than one way, can translate it into a form understandable, learnable, challenging, and interesting to your students, but that you also have the skills to actually teach the content. pedagogy without subject matter content isn't worth very much. Simply "knowing about" teaching methods won't do.
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There is probably no more important skill required in teaching social studies than the ability to explain events, ideas, principles, and social interrelationships. In some ways, good social studies teaching rests on the ability to tell stories well. For social studies, this story telling ability is grounded in the depth and awareness of the connective possibilities of the content. Helping students make new connections, to find challenge and meaning in social studies content is what excellent social studies teachers do every day.