Teaching social studies in elementary school: It's about context not content
3/28/16
Walking in woods at Rockefeller State Park with Olivia, talking about colonialism, what makes learning history tedious (knowing events and dates) vs alive (who did what & why). We talked about what students learn about the American colonies in elementary school vs middle school & how much is actually retained
I don't think it's about retention — I don't expect anything I'm teaching (facts, info) will be remembered.
I hope to achieve 2 things:
1) to open students' eyes to the world around them, that there's more beyond themselves — in 3rd gr this means that there's more to NYC than what we see around us today
2) to experience a way to think about history — that it's not a static thing in the past, but that it's stories about people, relationships, cause & effect, that there are multiple points of view and different peoples involved, power & disempowerment — and if they can reach the understanding that these stories/problems/issues are universal and continue to be relevant today, then they are thinking like scientists.