What is social studies and why do we teach it?

Social studies education is in a period of healing after the exclusion

and subsequent reestablishment of the course content in the Ohio State
Standards. This is a time when social studies teachers (and pre-service
teachers) need to grapple with the content to discover what truly defines
social studies. We need to intimately understand the importance of social
studies and why it is necessary in the world of education.
According to the National Council for the Social Studies, "the primary
purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and
reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse,
democratic society in an interdependent world (1994). The need for a
critically thinking, informed, engaged, educated population is in high
demand. This is crucial when thinking about the upcoming presidential
election. Ideally, the election should be decided based off the policy and
leadership of the candidates, however, many people (including the
candidates to an extent) see the candidate race as a popularity contest,
bringing up topics like physical looks, gender, etc. instead of policy during
debates. With this in mind, it would be interesting to explore how the
upcoming political election, or strong political debate, influences interest in
social studies.
Through my experiences as a pre-service teacher, I am beginning to
see just how important social studies is to young students. I wonder how we
can make social studies more meaningful, to connect instructional content
with the world that students interact with on a daily basis. Similarly, I wish to
explore how is social studies integrated into other content areas and
disciplines.
Classroom Observation
As part of my Introduction to Teaching Social Studies course at Bowling
Green State University, I have the opportunity to observe a classroom setting
in my field of study. Once a week, I act as an apprentice teacher in the
classroom, assisting in group activities, assessments, lesson plans, etc. but
not independently teaching. To protect confidentiality, I will not mention the
names of my students, mentor teacher, or school.

I am observing a freshman Modern World History class at a private,

catholic, all girls academy. My participating teacher and the students have
much to share and teach me, while also being open to the unique set of
knowledge that I can bring to the classroom. The classroom environment in
this school is different from most schools that I have observed in the past. I
observe both a regular and honors Modern World
History class with
mostly freshmen students, but the school allows movement within the uppergrade levels based off interest and ability of the students. This school
believes strongly in college preparation, so the classes are divided into
blocks, similar to a collegiate system, with semesters and long class times
(around 80 minutes). The majority of the students in this school and in my
classroom are white, middle to upperclass females. However, their political
views, prior content knowledge, personalities, and learning strategies spread
over a spectrum. The classroom is heavily based in technology. The school
has a 1-to-1 technology program, so all the students have personal laptops.
The classroom also has a Smart-board and utilizes GoogleClassroom to share
most of the class activities, documents, homework assignments, quizzes and
tests. The average class size in the school is around 17 students. In the
classes I observe, there are about 18 students in the first class and about 20
in the honors class. The desk arrangements are unique too. There are four
pods of desks that form S and figure 4 shapes. All students have a clear
line of vision to the front of the room with the Smart-board, but also have
access to easy partners and groups.
How is social studies interconnected with other disciplines?
I am still developing my teaching philosophy in general, but even more
so in the content of Social Studies. I am more educated on the content of
Language Arts in the middle grades. However, the more I learn about social
studies education, the more I see that the content is interconnected within
the different subjects and, to a larger extent, the world. For example, an
analysis of literature is not complete without an understanding of the context
in which the work was written. The events going on in the world both
positively and negatively impact the content of the literature. For example,
the literary value of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens would be
meaningless outside of the context of the French Revolution. This example
comes from a language arts lens, but hopefully it reflects the
interconnectivity of two seemingly different subject.

According to the National Council for the Social Studies curriculum

standards, social studies is an cross-disciplinary study: Within the school
program, social studies provides coordinated, systematic study drawing upon
such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography,
history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology,
as well as appropriate content from the humanities, mathematics, and
natural sciences (1994). The Ohio Department of Educations state
standards are more interdisciplinary, focusing on specific disciplines,
including history, economics, geography, and politics (2010). Even looking
from these perspectives, social studies covers a wide range of specific and
broad focuses. For example, knowledge from a social studies class is pulled
into a science classroom when discussing famous inventions or discoveries. It
is impossible to completely separate one subject from the other, because
knowledge and education is a web of information.
How do we make social studies more meaningful?
I have noticed a few trends in the different classes that I observe. The
first class, Modern World History, starts off the school day. The girls are more
subdued and quite, mostly because of the early morning. When we plan
more fun activities, that involve games and movement, their engagement
improves. The second class, honors Modern World History, sometimes
becomes so invested in a topic that the teacher and I need to reign in
discussion to manage the time for the lesson. Without going into teaching
strategies, I have noticed that the students become more engaged with the
material when it directly connects to their own world view. For instance, our
class was learning about capitalism, communism, and socialism. By simply
asking which -ism the U.S. has adopted, the students were able to connect
abstract knowledge to concrete examples. Also, the students are more
engaged when discussing topics from current events. The presidential race
and upcoming election has been intertwined into our classroom discussions
in terms of everything from history to economics. The students have a
vested interest in the content of the lesson because it has connection to
what they are seeing almost daily through campaign ads and news reports.
Social studies provides a lens for students to interact with the world.
How do current world events impact the teaching of social studies?
In my observing classroom, after the first presidential debate, the
students spend almost 40 minutes discussing the pros and cons of both

candidates. They also made observations about the debate, moderator,

campaigns, and policy. All of the students were actively listening and the
majority of the students were active in the discussion, often excited to add
insight. Both sides of the political spectrum were represented in the class
and the students were open to understanding both sides of an argument,
even if it opposed a topic they had just brought up. In my opinion, these
students were more accepting of other points of view than most college
students.
This is an interesting phenomena when question the importance of
social studies instruction. On multiple occasions, the students that I observe
have taken hold of their education, often asking weighted questions, opening
debate, and finding resources during an activity or discussion (using the 1-to1 technology) that supported their claims. I have never seen a class so
engaged in their own learning. Even when the teacher and I run into
problems that suspend the progress of a lesson, the students ask enough
questions that we end up covering the material needed anyway. In this class
at least, the students are actively engaging with the social studies content
and with the philosophies of social studies. This observation is a long cry
from the research proposed by authors Schug, Todd and Beery in Why Kids
Dont Like Social Studies. The authors interviewed a multitude of schools
and their students to rate social studies lowest, in terms of engagement,
compared to english, mathematics, reading and science (Schug, Todd &
Beery, 1984). In this classroom, there is an overwhelmingly enthusiastic
response to social studies. Certainly, this is not the sentiment in all schools,
but it makes me hopeful that students are once again becoming interested in
social studies.
Reflection
So, after all of this, why is social studies important? The topics taught
in a social studies classroom directly impact the world around us. Society
creates the education, but the education also creates the society. The reason
my students are able to discuss the most recent presidential debate with
such tact and authority is because they have the prior knowledge from social
studies to create a dialogue with the current events in the world. It has an
important meaning for them. I remember, one of the students lamented that
they could not vote in this election. They understood that this election, like
the last presidential election, has the potential to be monumental. If
Secretary Clinton is elected as president, then that would be the first female

president ever in the history of the United States. They also understand that
elections have a certain impact on their personal lives because they have
analyzed how policy effects the economy, education, freedom of information,
etc. (interconnections of social studies). Without the context of social studies
education, these students would not have such a vested interest in the
election, because they might not have the knowledge to understand its
importance. I think former Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan,
summarizes this phenomena well: The greatest thinkers in nearly every
society have concluded that a well-educated person needs to learn much
more than math, science, and how to read in their native tongue. As James
Leach, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities recently
put it, a society that fails to study history, refuses to learn from literature,
and denies the lessons of philosophy imprisons [its] thoughts in the here
and now. As social studies teachers, you have the key to set the prisoners
free (2011).

Resources
Duncan, Arne. (2011). The social studies are essential to a well-rounded
education.
National Council for the Social Studies: Social Education
75(3). Retrieved from
http://www.socialstudies.org/publications/a_well_rounded_education
National Council for the Social Studies. (1994). What is Social Studies?
Expectations of Excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social Studies.
Washington, DC: NCSS, 1-3.
Ohio Department of Education. (2010). Ohio's new learning standards:
Social studies standards. Retrieved from
http://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Ohio-s-New-LearningStandards/Social-Studies/SS-Standards.pdf.aspx.
Schug, M., Todd, R., & Beery. R. (1984). Why kids don't like social studies.
Social Education, 48(5), 382-387.