Two-Column Notes

Date:8/
30

Name: William Yeo

Class/Subject: EDTL 2760

Title: Why Kids Don't Like Social Studies

MR Source(s): Schug, Mark C., Robert J. Todd, and R. Berry. "Research in

Social Studies Education." Why Kids Don't Like Social Studies (1984): 47-53. Web

Page #

The Text Says

Notes (key concepts, direct
quotes, etc.)

I Say
My notes, commentary

Even more alarming are

studies showing that young
people dont feel social
studies is a particularly
valuable or interesting pan of
the school curriculum.

There have been a variety

of studies which have found
that social studies is not
perceived by students as
being among their favorite or
most interesting subjects

I remember this happening to

me in high school, everyone
thought that social studies was
a stupid subject and shouldnt
be taught. The reason I always
found it important is because of
a quote my dad used to say.
The reason we learn history of
the past, is so we dont make
those mistakes in the future.
This quote always made social
studies so much more
interesting in my eyes.
This is a key part to this article;
it talks about how kids perceive
social studies, but the point of
this article to to ask kids about
social studies except with a
different approch

I think the reason older kids

Hughes (1965) asked over

9oo eleventh-grade students
to rank in order of preference
the five required studies in
their high school. In the
overall ranking, social studies
ranked fourth from the
bottom.

We decided that we would

like to get a "best case"
look at student thinking
about social studies.

Forty-eight Percent of
students with an even split
between elementary and
secondary students, said the
reason for their choice was
based on future careers.

dont like history as much is

because they feel that they are
learning the same information
over and over again, except
there are more tiny details to
the story they need to learn. A
part of this fault goes to us as
educators, for not making
learning fun at all grade levels.
You need to find a way to make
all the new information fun to
learn.
The overall main point of this
article relys in this quote. They
want to try to find a different
approach in order to discover if
that will change studnets minds
on history.
Having 40 percent think that
English was the most important
because it will help them with
their career doesnt surprise me.
I also think English is very
important to your future but that
is a very high percentage. I
dont understand how kids dont
think Social Studies is just as
important though.

The students were also

asked about what they found
to be uninteresting in social
studies. Table 5 summarizes
the student responses'. The
most frequent student
comment was that social
studies was boring

Again this is fault to educators

for failing a way to make small
details of old information
interesting. I know I skipped a
lot of detail regarding the
findings but I truly feel that this
is a big thing we need to fix. As
you see in their fidings there is
not much change in how people
precieve social studies no
matter how the questions are
asked. After 3 studies on this
information its time to realize
there needs to be a change.
5
Nearly one-third of the
We can see the problems here
students felt that being
with why social studies is
successful in their favorite
considered boring from other
class was the main reason
students. Here you can see kids
they preferred it to social
reaching out with ideas for
studies. "I'm better in math," educators to make this subject
or "I get better grades in
better. We need to find a way to
English" were typical
make this more prominent. I
responses. Another set of
think another big step we need
student comments
to take is implementing how
mentioned a desire to do
useful social studies can be.
more creative work "ln
Knowing about elections,
creative writing you can write politics, phycology are all
what you feel like and use
extremely important to life.
your imagination,"
Connections to previous MR: The reason the kids dont like social studies is
simply because we have no interesting ways of providing homework, or
making new information stimulating. If we were less focused on shoving
information down students throats and actually focused on giving them an
education they need and enjoy. These students would not only love the

subject more but also, it could greater their lives.