Like I'm literally a social studies teacher and I can say from experience you all recieve subpar social studies instruction that you complain about on here not because theres a conspiracy by your teachers to hide knowledge from you, its because
Its importance is largely ignored by districts in favor of math and english. Which makes students think it's not important
Lack of standardized social studies standards and/or poorly outlined social studies standards. My state only very recently updated their standards from the 1990s
Lack of resources! Social studies will get funding last of the "core" classes
We have to teach sometimes 100+ years of history in one year or an entire national government , so we have to gloss over specifics and non-essentials. I didnt understand the whole extent of the US in the middle east until I took a college class specifically on it. Social studies is very complicated!
There is absolutely pressure on teachers either by districts, states, or parents to not teach about "controversial" history like LGBT, non-white, women's or even just events that put the US in a bad light!
We're moving away from this but teachers teach it as fact based rather than inquiry. Especially with the internet we have to reconsider how we teach social studies and the focus is turning to historiography, inquiry, argument building, and research skills. We want to give you the skills to look at resources and interpret them
Social studies, like math is a content area that depends on concepts building into each other. We cant teach you about Africa, or the Middle East if you dont even know that there are 7 continents. Or about how local elections influence you if you dont understand the 3 branches or the constitutions. And sadly that's where we have to start many times!
It has such a strong literacy component and if someone is a struggling reader/writer then they will have major difficulties. Which means us as teachers have to lower our standards because the skills needed to succeed are advanced.
I think next to literacy social studies is the most important content discipline to be a productive adult. I can connect everything I talk about in classes to real world consequences. You cant understand what's happening now without understanding what happened back then. However I've heard from parents, teachers and most of all students! That social studies is stupid, that it doesnt matter, they dont care about history or geography. This is because nobody considers it important and it's a cycle because you guys will complain on tumblr for an eternity about how your teachers never taught you that alexander Hamilton was bisexual (see point 4) but unless we have a change in public opinion to value social studies more it wont change. But it's easier to blame teachers than to reconsider societal biases!
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