Social Studies

Today's conversation starter is about the controversy developing over President Obama's plan to deliver a speach to public school students on Tuesday. This would be a great opportunity to for students to explore a variety of related topics such as (but not limited to) conservatism versus liberalism, rights of parents and families, and President's use of power.

Is this supposed to be here? If not, where is it supposed to be?

I observed my cooperating teacher using this site (Census in Schools) for a 6th grade geography class. The students responded positively and were actively engaged in the lesson. The students were able to work with their own individual maps while exploring and answering essential questions. The site also has information and materials appropriate for all other grades. I think that this site could also be used for U.S. History since the first census orginiated for the purpose of creating a representative government.

This website uses music from a variety of artists to encourage teaching social studies. The songs on this site are a little cheesy for me, but they are impossible to get out of your head. I think that they could be great to incorporate multiple intelligences into a lesson. This site is valuable for social studies teachers because it provides an alternate way to introduce materials.

An important part of our mission as secondary educators is to prepare students for either post-secondary work and the workplace.

It is important to remember the break-down in financing, and therefore, where real power lies. If we want policy change, we need to know the most effective avenues for lobbying. We may think Obama sets the education policy agenda but the reality is, governors have a lot of power and persuasion in the field. For example, it always amazes me how different public higher education systems are, and this is because certain states have made it a priority to fund higher education greatly.

This website uses research sources gathered by the BBC. I would use this website to create a family tree - it makes the process interesting and creates an interest in history by making it relatable. This is valuable to social studies teachers, because if this was employed in the classroom it would help students build research skills in a way that interests them.

Educational videos!

I was especially struck by this line when I thought back to Ch. 5 in Mathison - Defining the Social Studies Curriculum. It lists the goals of Goals 2000: Educate America Act. The first thing listed is "All children in America will start school ready to learn". The reality is that not all students start school ready to learn or at least at the same place. As this newspaper article acknowledges, many poor children enter less prepared for school than those with wealthier parents and this is, in some cases, despite some having access to learning programs. Would an influx of new funds from such a bill create a more organized and directed early learning strategy? And if so, I wonder how educators can really help parents take advantage of the available services.

I think a plan for reaching out to parenst will be a crucial step in making this worthwhile. Communities need to provide the structures that would enable to parents to take advantage of these options and that might include adult education or parenting classes, too.

I find this to be an effective way to measure the success of charter schools. By comparing students to students who wished to attend charter schools but were not admitted, the study deals with the issue of student and parent motivation.

While I find the practices of charter schools to be exciting (in that the requirements do seem to be making a difference), this still leaves the disturbing issue of the gap between charter schools and traditional schools. While Bloomberg and Klein can praise the charter schools, the reality is that most students are still in traditional schools and are not helped by these improvements. I would like to know if there is a way for these practices to be implemented on a more wide-spread scale.

I find this particularly important after seeing how some race dynamics play out in my practicum. Specifically I find myself asking "Why are all the White kids sitting together in the classroom?" This article might give one reason.

Highlights the importance of being specific with kids. I'm not sure why our modesty makes us, as teachers, code and shy away from just being real with our students. One of the goals that I have set for myself this semester is to get real with students, just tell them the truth (for example saying, "That's disrespectful. Stop.") instead of playing games (for example feeling flustered and walking away or saying something vague like, "behave").

And here's the gold. Kids are not color blind. Adult embarrassment to speak about race does not mean we're not communicating messages to our children about race and prejudice, it just means that we're also communicating that it's something to be embarrassed about and/or hush up. I really recommend reading this article in full. It's fantastic.

So clearly the coolest link on this webpage is the "History" link. This will link you to the history of the FBI which is interesting in and of itself BUT also contains some links to primary documents. For example there is a link in 1966 called "six civil rights activists murdered" that takes you to the FBI file of the murder investigation. It might be really neat to have students look at this file and look at other accounts of this incident to understand how police/FBI officers interact with communities and crime. There's another neat account under June 1933 of the Kansas City Massacre!

The "FBI Investigates" tab is a little like the spy museum. It takes you through two cases, what happened and how investigators solved the crime. For any CSI - philes this might be some great info.

"FBI Adventures" is a little not as cool as I'd hoped. While they do give brief snapshots of country profiles, students don't get to actually investigate anything on their own. What they Could do is begin to see how even crime is globalized and how countries now have to work together to protect citizens - an interesting angle on globalization/global studies.

"American Journey", has a link to the dates of Tocqueville's trip to the States. Some of the dates are hyperlinked to his actual journal entries. Very simple and student friendly.

"All About Alexis de Tocqueville" has quick facts and a timeline. Very simple for a superficial report or introductory/cursory outline.

"Democracy in America" has very very very basic quotes from this text. I'm not sure that it would be useful for anything academic.

As we talked about in class, making students feel comfortable to start exploring works of art is a crucial step if teachers are going to use them in their lessons. In much the same vein, Herman had to make sure the policemen felt comfortable in this new environment and did not feel inhibited from sharing their ideas or observations just because it was a new medium.

Here we are offered a much more personal way in which practicing descriptive techniques can help students/children. Herman worked with her own son and asked him to describe in great detail what he saw and this helped him become more verbal.

This notes the shift and commercialization of schooling. "Heads of School" in any situation, private or public, have to be super human in their ability to do everything. They have to please everyone, and do it all with a smile.

These are the people that hire the teachers that teach the chilrden. It's an interesting cause and effect kind of relationship: people are less willing to leave their old jobs because they can't hire their own kind of people in the next position, meaning the job will be harder and less of their own. It adds a whole additional dynamic.

Dave's ESL cafe is a site that is maintained by Dave Sperling. I cannot find any information about the man and his affiliations on the website, but he does have contact info.

Dave collects and posts lesson plans, strategies, and assessments for teaching English language learners. Dave appears to have exclusive control on what gets posted, and there are a lot of helpful ideas from educators around the world.

I think this site is a great resource for teachers with ELL students. It maintains a large selection of works collected from educators. Many of the lesson aim at creating a more active and fun classroom. Also, if the forum was up and running it would also be a great place for teachers to help one another with their teaching dilemmas.

In the black townships of South Africa, many public schools do not meet the students' high expectations of career or college preparation. This article describes how students have worked for justice: protesting (at times violently) and teaching themselves lessons when teachers fail to show for work.

Apartheid is alive and well in South Africa's education system.

The author relies on interviews with current teachers, students, and administrators in South Africa. She also cites data and perspectives from the Development Bank of South Africa. In her piece she examines the current situation in a single township, then ties the issue to the entire nation.

The Television News Archive was created and is maintained by Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. AU subscribes to the archive, which allows us to view many of the streaming videos online.

You can search for a specific news broadcast by topic or date. Often you can find specific segments during a news program or you can watch the entire news program. If you are looking for a specific date in history you can go right the the day, week, or month that the event occurred or was being covered.

In the classroom, I think this would be a great medium for independent research. Students could focus on a topic or event in recent history and report/analyze the news coverage of the topic/event. In general, the media could help students understand how Americans understood or misunderstood an event.

This website relies on information from Encarta, a reputable source. When I was in high school I had a few history teachers who would write a "This Day in History" on the board every day. Since it was part of our routine, as students, we paid close attention to it, and would complain when it wasn't there. We were developing an interest in history without even realizing it! I think its a great resource for teachers to use to capture interest, or even include historical information not mentioned in the curriculum.