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?!?!?