Social Studies

We've been doing schools the same way in this nation for 150 years, so if we don't step up, then nothing is going to change

bility ranks among the top barriers blocking the nation's children from receiving the best education possible.

A board-certified, 16-year teaching veteran, Ursetta, 38, believes the lack of teacher flex

Although they follow school board-approved curriculum and standards, instructors can easily rearrange lessons to "make better sense for the kids" -- making better connections between different subject matter, Ursetta said.

The lack of quality school leadership is a big reason that experienced teachers leave their schools,

Dubbed Race to the Top, the program is essentially a contest pitting states against each other to win a share of $4.35 billion in grant money from congressional stimulus legislation.

To qualify for Race to the Top, the rules call on states to create "data systems" linking student success with teacher performance.

National Education Association

members fear it opens the door to measuring teacher performance by how students score on tests.

"What we're really against is using a single [student ] test on a single day" to assess teacher performance, said NEA Executive Director John Wilson. "What we're more accepting of are multiple indicators," and teacher performance "observed in classroom should count as the major part of evaluation."

many teachers are reacting coolly to Race to the Top because they "feel like it's too much like No Child Left Behind and are looking for something different.

Race to the Top also aims to give a boost to charter schools -- special public schools that are given more independence in order to encourage innovation.

Background Guns, tanks, and bombs were the principal weapons of World War II

Guns, tanks, and bombs were the principal weapons of World War II, but there were other, more subtle, forms of warfare as well. Words, posters, and films waged a constant battle for the hearts and minds of the American citizenry just as surely as military weapons engaged the enemy. Persuading the American public became a wartime industry, almost as important as the manufacturing of bullets and planes. The Government launched an aggressive propaganda campaign to galvanize public support, and some of the nation's foremost intellectuals, artists, and film makers became warriors on that front.

The Documents

Although many Amazigh are illiterate, the government has put in place measures to assist schools to teach the written form of the language.

This written form is expected to have a unifying effect.

"My parents couldn't read a newspaper or understand the television because they were in Arabic," he says. "Now we have our own television channel and magazines in Berber. We feel much closer now to people in the Rif and Atlas Mountains."

"Most Moroccans grow up speaking Berber - why should they be at a disadvantage in having to use classical Arabic which is a foreign language whenever they brush up against bureaucracy?"

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.

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.

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.