The Essence of Teaching Social Studies

Methods for Secondary and Elementary Teacher Candidates

James A. Duplass

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367559144
• eBook ISBN: 9781000202038
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Designed for use in elementary and secondary social studies education courses, this book supports the teaching of social studies methods in a range of educational settings. By highlighting long-standing content and principles of social studies education in a concise and direct way, this volume offers the building blocks of a comprehensive course, for use as springboards to the effective presentation of professors' desired course emphases. With sections on foundations, subject areas, and best practices, this text explains the intersection between the "modelling" role of social studies teachers as democratic citizens, social studies fields of study, and strategies implemented in the classroom to encourage students' critical thinking and values formation.

Part 1

Social Studies Education

What we do to our children they will do to our society.

Pliny the Elder, Roman Historian and Philosopher, 23–79 BCE (Bennett, 1992, p. 36)

The democratic ethos of Western civilization evolved from ancient Greece and has been refined based on influences from across the planet. The underpinnings of social studies education can be traced to the lineage of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

Dawson (1922), in his history of the forming of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), foresaw the potential problems of the definition for the term “social studies”:

One thing that stands out in the way of some who would like to support the National Council more freely than they do as yet is its name. The title, “Social Studies” is not fully understood; possibly it is not subject as yet to logical definition … The term “social studies” was used for lack of a better one, one that would not be so cumbersome as to hamper facile discussions of the elements of this field.

(p. 46)

Seventy years later David Saxe pointed out:

In a field plagued by a lack of identity, I argue that practitioners and theorists are prevented from articulating viable perceptions of social studies’ purpose, theory, and practice because they lack basic understandings of the original historical underpinnings of social studies.

(1992, p. 1)

Part 1 Social Studies Education will examine the idea of a social studies education through a humanistic and education theory lens by integrating historical and contemporary perspectives. It is intended to assist teacher candidates develop a personal, coherent philosophy as to why teaching social studies education is essential, unique, and more challenging than other teaching fields.

NCSS Code of Ethics Principle Four

It is the ethical responsibility of social studies professionals to cultivate and maintain an instructional environment in which the free contest of ideas is prized.

1. Effective social studies instruction necessitates an environment in which social studies professionals and students are free to study, investigate, present, interpret, and discuss relevant facts and ideas. Those engaged in social studies instruction have a responsibility to accept and practice the democratic commitment to open inquiry and to approach controversial issues in a spirit of inquiry rather than advocacy.
2. Social studies professionals have an obligation to exercise and maintain academic freedom in the classroom and to abide by such reasonable considerations as the intent of the course and the age and sophistication of students.
3. The social studies professional should acknowledge the worth and tentativeness of knowledge. He or she should engage in a continuous search for new knowledge, retaining both the right and the obligation as a student scholar to doubt, to inquire freely, and to raise searching questions. The social studies professional has an obligation to distinguish between personal opinion and beliefs that can be supported by verified facts and to impart the knowledge of these differences to his or her students.
4. Social studies professionals have an obligation to establish classroom climates that support student rights to know, to doubt, to inquire freely, to think critically, and to express openly.

NCSS (2016)

A Proposition

The goal of teaching and learning the social studies is to empower students to consider who they are and want to be as authentic human beings and citizens.

Resources

Documents: Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research: A Concise Historiography of the Social Studies; Intellectual History of the Social Studies | NCSS: Revised Code of Ethics for the Social Studies Profession.

References

Bennett, W. J. (1992). The de-valuing of America: The fight for our culture and out children. Simon and Schuster.

Dawson, E. (1922). The plans of the national council for the social studies. The Historical Outlook, 13(8), 317–321.

NCSS. (2016). Revised code of ethics for the social studies profession. Retrieved from www.socialstudies.org/position/ethics

Saxe, D. W. (1992). Framing a theory for social studies foundations. Review of Educational Research, 62(3), 122–127.

1 Definitions and Propositions

Although it may be true that the notion of teaching virtues such as honesty or integrity arouses little controversy, it is also true that vague consensus on the goodness of these virtues conceals a great deal of actual disagreement over their definitions.

Lawrence Kohlberg, American Psychologist, 1927–1987 (Garrod, A., 1992, p. 31)

Definitions

In any field of study and practice, professionals try to carefully define the terms used in their community of practice. To have differences, deficiencies, and nuances of terms is not unusual in applied fields of study, particularly because – as in social studies education – the practice draws on other disciplines. What one professor means by “knowledge,” “values,” or “active learning” can be slightly or very different from another’s. Because this can be confusing for a newcomer to the community of practice, the following definitions are provided as a pre-reading activity to enhance understanding of the concepts and generalizations when encountered in the book. Some definitions are original to this book’s author and others are based on the work of select scholars or learned societies.

Academic disciplines – are typically defined as the areas of research and study found in universities.

Arc of Inquiry – is part of the NCSS C3 Framework and is based on constructivist theories. It places a premium on lessons that start with compelling questions or propositions and using active learning “investigations” by which students and teachers, together, pursue answers through the examination of foundational knowledge and democratic ideals.

Active learning – is where students are engaged in the learning process through teacher-created engagements that require students to think critically, such as in problem-solving, decision-making, and values analysis and completing tasks such as writing, creating graphic organizers, etc. This is in contrast to passive learning such as listening to teacher-dominated lectures and activities such as completing fill-in-the-blank worksheets.

Agency – is the capacity of a person to consistently make choices and to act.

Moral agency – is the ability to make moral judgments as the basis for acting (Barker, 2005).

Authenticity – “whereby each individual is thought to have a unique identity, an original way of being human, to which he or she must be true” to have the Good Life (Taylor, 1992, p. 38).

Autonomy – is the ability to reflect critically on one’s principles, decide how to live, consider one’s circumstances, and act based on those reflections.

Beliefs – are part of students’ identity and ideology. Because individuals have emotional attachments and value beliefs as important to their identity, beliefs are fundamentally different from abstract ideas and are more resistant to change than ideas (Fenstermacher, 1994; Richardson, 1996). When presented with compelling questions and propositions of ideas that matter, students are moved to reflect on their beliefs and identity: They are inspired to reconsider who they are and who they want to be.

C3 Framework – is a curriculum and instruction platform developed by the NCSS that has two parts: A) Grade-level standards for the core social studies subject areas; and B) the Arc of Inquiry, a methodological approach to teaching the social studies based on constructivist theories.

Compelling propositions and questions – based on social studies foundational knowledge, teachers develop questions and propositions that are aimed at the considerations of a democratic ideology. As an example, learning the foundational knowledge of various wars would lead to consideration of the enduring idea of the common attributes of causes of wars. In turn, this would lead to a consideration of a thing that matters – how to decide if a war is just – which leads to examination of at least two democratic beliefs, the right to security and respect for human life.

Caring encounter – entails genuine presence and connectedness between a teacher and student that is initiated by the teacher in order to facilitate the student’s formation of a holistic identity and ideology (Buber, 2000; Marcel, 2001/1951). It requires “engrossment,” what Noddings defines as “an open, nonselective receptivity to the cared-for” and “where the person being cared for senses the caring’s energy is flowing toward him” (Noddings, 1999, 1998, p. 40).

Civics – is not the same as education about government(s), it is teaching and learning for civic competence.

Civic competence – is “the knowledge, intellectual processes, and democratic dispositions required of students to be active and engaged participants in public life” (NCSS, 2020).

Common Core – is a set of standards created by the National Governors Association that emphasizes basic skills. These standards outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade level. All but a handful of states have adopted the standards, and those that did not have very similar standards of their own design.

Constructivism – is a widely accepted theory that entails methods of instruction based on a view of learning as a process in which the learner is expected to actively construct knowledge, as opposed to the passive learning approach where a student is viewed as a pitcher to be filled up with knowledge.

Cognitive constructivism – describes how the individual learner comes to understand and organize knowledge by conceptualizing ideas into schema (Piaget, 1929).

Social constructivism – emphasizes how meaning and understanding grow out of social encounters with others (Vygotsky, 1978).

Critical thinking – “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends” (Dewey, 1910, p. 6).

Curriculum – is derived from the Latin word meaning race course, as in a race with hurdles an athlete must jump over to get to the finish line. The when and what of teaching has traditionally been referred to as the curriculum, scope and sequence, or framework. The past two decades have also seen the increased use of the word “standards” when referring to curriculum. The how of teaching is usually referred to as pedagogy, approaches, methods, strategies, or instruction.

Democracy and democratic – refers to a (unless stated otherwise) liberal democracy as opposed to the narrower construction of rule by the people. It includes free, multi-candidate elections; universal suffrage; limited government powers through a constitution or set of laws that transcend the government apparatus; the idea of inalienable rights based on equality of persons; and the rule of law. The term “democracy” (small “d”) is not to be confused with the “Democrats” or the Democratic Party. Both Republicans and Democrats adhere to a democratic ideology.

Democratic beliefs – for this book’s framework, the core democratic beliefs ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• About the Author
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Professors’ Preface
• Students’ Introduction
• PART 1: Social Studies Education
• PART 2: Schools, Curriculum, and Standards
• PART 3: Best Practices in Social Studies Education
• Conclusion
• Index