Gregory Silcox

What is social studies and why do we teach it?

In my field placement I have attended Anthony Wayne Middle School. Within the school I have
been within Mrs. Young and Mr. Beakas. Both are middle school social studies teachers. Mrs.
Young is a 7th grade teacher and Mr. Beakas is an 8th grade teacher. They are both similar and
different in their teaching styles. Why kids dont like Social Studies, and how these teachers are
working around this issue? And my other question is what type of democracy, and how much
freedom should students get in the classroom? Overall from my field experiences I am able to
answer these to questions.

Why kids dont like Social Studies, and how these teachers are working around this issue?
To answer the first part of this question I looked at our first blog post and the reading Why kids
dont like Social Studies by Marx Schug, Eobert Todd, and Aiud Beery. Within the whole article
it talks about why kids are not as interested in Social Studies as they are with other topics in
school. One implication of student thinking about the importance of social studies is that we do
not do a very good job of communicating why social studies knowledge and skills are valuable.
More care needs to be taken to tell students why social studies is important (Page 50 Schug,
Todd, Beery). This is a major factor in why kids are not as interested in Social Studies as they are
in other subjects. You need a teacher who gets the kids involved and makes the learning process
fun. In many situations the teachers are the biggest influence in if a student likes a subject or not;
so make a positive influence on your students.
To answer the second part of my question I used my field experience over the past three weeks.
Even though I was in 2 different classrooms both teachers got the students involved within their
classrooms and related material to current topics. In Mrs. Youngs class she was teaching about
the ancient Olympics, so each student was part of a group and they were assigned a Greek citystate. They had to create flags and chariots for their own opening ceremony. To relate it to
modern time Mrs. Young showed clips of the Olympics opening ceremony and parts of the
opening ceremony for The Hunger Games. In Mr. Beakass class they had an assignment about
what was fact or fiction in the movie Pocahontas. Each group got a scene in the movie and had to
research to see if those events occurred. So relating social studies; especially history to modern
topics really got the students involved.

What type of democracy, and how much freedom should students get in the classroom?
To answer this question, I am going to use a little bit from the website of
http://democracyranking.org/wordpress/ and our discussions from in class. The website states,
Quality of Democracy = (freedom & other characteristics of the political system) &
(performance of the non-political dimensions) The non-political dimensions are: gender,

economy, knowledge, health, and the environment (democracyranking.org). I think that overall
this is a good definition of democracy and parts of this definition effects how the classroom is
ran. Do students get freedoms in school; do they have a government; and should it be based off
of the non-political dimensions. In our class discussion people were very split on this topic.
Many people say no way students should not have rights in school, they dont get rights until
they are 18. Others say that students should have the right to do what they want when they want;
its their education. Then the rest of the people are split, it depends on the situation if students
should get rights.
In this paragraph I am going to share with you what I have experienced in my field experience.
At Anthony Wayne Middle School the school has gone paperless, so that gives students the
access to the web. This gives students more rights because they can be more tempted to not do
their work and surf on the web. The teachers try to make the students stay on task but at the end
of the day it is the students grade, and they get out what they put in. Also since both the days
theta I have went on my field placements the classes have been working on projects I got to see
how the classroom operates. The students are given free range of the building to work on
filming, creating posters, and working as a group. The teachers make sure that they give them a
time table of where the students should be and for the most part due days are set. Overall I think
that this has worked out great, the students get projects done and they are aware of the
consequences if they do not finish.
Overall experiences
So back to the overall question of, What is Social Studies and Why do we Teach it? Just from my
field experiences so far in middle school classrooms students are learning about the major history
aspects of history. Also students are learning the true facts about history and how everything that
you read and hear is not correct. The why of this question is so students get to learn about the
past and see theta many things in the past are related to events going on today. Anthony Wayne
Middle School has about 800 kids in the school. Like I said earlier the school has basically gone
paperless. So the school is technology based and this effects the way students learn and teachers
teach. I do not think that it affects them in a positive or negative way. Since both days were
project days the students were working on projects and the teachers were there to help with
technical difficulties and also to help keep the students on track. What I did on those days were
help the students with ideas of what they should do and to also help with technology difficulties.
Both classrooms were decorated in various history items. Since both of my teachers only teach
the same thing all day the classroom was full of objects about that subject. Overall I really like
what the teachers are doing and I think the kids are getting a great education from the teachers
that I have been about to have my field experience with.
References
Home. (n.d.). Retrieved September 11, 2016, from http://democracyranking.org/wordpress/, Sorkin, A.
(2009).

Schug, M., Todd, R., & Beery. R. (1984). Why kids don't like social studies. Social Education,
48(5), 382-387.