Honk If You Teach Social Studies

Honk if you use GPS. Ring if your smartphone app gives you driving directions. Raise your hand if you go geocaching. Heck, raise your hand if you even know what geocaching is! Jump up and down until I call on you if you know which country has the largest volume and value of trade with the United States.

Now if only I could hear the honks and rings, and see the raised hands and pogoing pro teachers. I’d be curious to know the answers you gave. And then I’d ask some further questions, like these: “Do you own a gazetteer?” “How are you at reading a map?” “Can you locate Burkina Faso on a map? How about Helena, Montana?”

I’m a social studies junkie, of sorts. I love historical trivia (Robespierre was placed face-up in the guillotine, unlike most other condemned people), enjoy discussing and parsing the meanings of obscure political dogma (thanks, Mr. DeBisschop), and can sit for hours studying maps for the fun of it (or to find another fly-fishing stream).

Sorry, ladies, this amazing blog writer is already spoken for.

Anyway, as a former English teacher, it’s easy for me to relate to changes in curriculum that impact how language arts is taught in classrooms today. Similarly, with mathematics being the other leg upon which modern education stands, I also understand common core’s impact. The areas I’m missing out on are social studies, science, and the arts. And, after reading about the Department of Education’s recently released national geography survey results, I was left wondering how much social studies education was making its way into a student’s learning day.

Are you a social studies teacher? Is social studies just one of the many subjects you teach? Help me understand the state of social studies teaching today by commenting on this post with your perspective.

By the way, Canada is the country with the largest volume and value of trade with the United States. But you knew that already!


One thought on “Honk If You Teach Social Studies

  1. This year I will be teaching only 5th grade math. But I love history. I’m one of those weird people that dress up in funny clothes on the weekends to shoot at my friends during the day and sit with them around the fire at night enjoying a bit of grog. In other words, I’m a revolutionary war re-enactor. So let’s just say I live American history.

    The recent trend in social studies teaching has me very disturbed. It’s not tested, so…. I have been told (when I was self-contained), “Don’t teach social studies.” (Don’t ask where I got report card grades.) This year it’s “Don’t teach social studies in isolation.” Which just means you can use social studies passages and material to teach reading concepts. But that doesn’t teach the historical impact.

    I read to my students every day. So they get their history from the historical fiction that I read. I’m going to try some after school activities this year. Hopefully there will be some interest. But my experience has been that students love learning about history and how it affects them today. We’ll see.

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