Social Studies Reflection

Social Studies, to me, is the only interesting subject in school.  I am including college.  The study of human beings is the most interesting, beneficial, and impacting subject left.  To think that elementary schools are putting this important subject to the side, makes me sick.  Social Studies gives some people an idea of life by studying others lives.

I feel as a future educator, I have the ability to condemn or help prosper the minds and logic of our future society.  I can stick to fairy tales and brainwashing tactics of stupidity, or I can teach both sides of every story.  I feel by teaching both sides I can keep myself from getting in trouble.  This way the students are unawarely developing their critical voice as they grow and gain insightful knowledge by their own research through out my class and their life.

I think every aspect of Social Studies is extremely important.  Maps, history, cultures, knowledge of the world and people in general.  Social Studies is taught, mostly, from facts and stories alone.  There are no theories in Social Studies, only stories of people and how we "came" to be who we are and so forth.  This class has opened my eyes to a plausible way of teaching students I have always felt I could make a difference.  Reconstructing society one step at a time.

Group Opinions and Discussion

I feel the last day of our Social Studies class was well spent.  I really enjoyed the discussions about different controversial topics about Social Studies and being a teacher in general.  I enjoyed hearing every ones opinions.  I have noticed how much we all really enjoyed this class, and I feel we all really learned a lot from this class.  We did not just learn how to be a good teacher, but how to question things even as an adult.  If you can establish your critical voice as a teacher, then you can lead your students into a vast world of opportunities, ideologies, fact based opinions, and much more than any textbook or worksheet could take them.  That sentence may have sounded a little strange, but I feel teaching from the heart sets the mood for your life and your students life in the future and in your classroom.

Standardized Subjective Testing

This past Monday in my Social Studies methods course, we played a Jeopardy game using questions from 3rd to 6th grade Social Studies T-cap questions.  Needless to say, we were all overwhelmed by the number of questions we did not know.  There were questions about things we most likely forgot or were simply never introduced to that particular subject.  A lot, if not most, of the questions had me quite baffled.  I can see how schools fail the Social Studies T-caps section.  First, they never teacher Social Studies.  Second, they do not cover the standards for the grade they are teaching, or they just accept the fact they will fail the Social Studies section.  I'm pretty sure the state does not punish schools for low Social Studies testing. So there you have it.  The culprit to it all.  The state and the federal fundings.  They do not care.  Math and Reading are the most important. Or are they?!?!?

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a great break from the things we must do to financial prosper in this life. I'm talking about school. Money sucking school. 

I cannot wait to be Bob Dylan this Monday. I've been doing research and I feel I must be off to do more.  Living History Museums seem fun, but I feel nervous....

Oh yea. Cannot wait to see Tracy with no basketball under her shirt...

Book Talkin'

I highly enjoyed the book talks our class did on Wednesday.  Listening to all the different book talks made me excited to read alot more books.  Regardless of them being children books or not.  I could see myself using this activity to tell my class about books, or having my students doing book talks to groups or the whole class.  I was having them do "commercials" of book talks.  Students might enjoy that.

Everest the Mountain

I decided at the beginning of class I would climb Mountain Everest.  I was informed of the cost of climbing and the high death rate that comes along with the intense climb.  I decided that climbing Mount Everest is apparently done by rich people with nothing better to do, people wanting to feel alive, lifelong goals and aspirations, or someone yearning to learn how to cherish his or her own life.  I feel if I had zero family left, zero kids, this would be something I would save for.  After completing the task, I am sure you would feel you could do anything. 

I never realized Mount Everest was sacred and worshiped in a sense by people called Sherpas.  Who all have the same last name, Sherpa.  How strange.  I feel allowing people to climb and trash their mountain, they are obviously getting money or their government is.  Either way, Mount Everest is beautiful and should be considered sacred.  Sacred to everyone in the world.

VOTE and die.

I voted for Carl Twofeathers Whitaker.  Needless to say no one else in Tennessee did research, besides watching the TV and driving past Bill Haslam signs every 3 feet. Blah blah. Bill Haslam the millionaire wins, of course.  He wins because of the following factors:


1. He is a millionaire
2. His father owns the Pilot Corporation, which is a large petroleum company
3. He worked as chief executive officer of the chamber of commerce and Saks Fifth Avenue
4. He put all his money into commercials and signs, as well as daddy funds and corporation funding into his campaign. Makes me sick.
5. People only voted for him because when they went to vote all they could remember was the color maroon and Bill Haslam videos. What a good tactic he used, brainwashing
6. He claims to be a Christian, but is part of all the corporations running this country

I saw a video where he said he was not going to audit the federal reserve and after that I blocked his face from my mind.  If the rest of America does not wake up, then it is only going to get worse.  Sorry all my posts have been so political, but I find this blog to be soothing.

I am NOT a republican.  I am NOT a democrat.  I am a LIBERTARIAN for life. I use to  be an anarchist, but I've grown up and realized civil liberties are worth fighting for.