Final Thoughts

Teaching social studies is often placed on the backburner in the classroom. It should not be this way. Social studies needs to be taught more because it is important for students to know the history of their country. During my sixty-hour field placement, I saw social studies being taught probably four times. By being taught, I mean popcorn reading straight of out the book. The students were definitely bored with it and not actually learning the content. It is important, especially when teaching social studies, to have an active environment. Activities that would be included in an active environment would be a living history museum, putting on plays, using websites, bringing in artifacts, block city, and establishing a democratic classroom. Allowing students to be involved in the classroom will teach them the responsibilities as citizens, community involvement, and help them build relationships.
My curriculum ideology is learner centered. I think it is important to keep students the main focus of the classroom. I want to have an active environment in my classroom with every subject. I want my students to feel comfortable in my classroom and not be afraid to speak out. I want to teach my students how to think. I want them to be able to develop critical thinking skills so they can explore on their own and establish individual ideas about what they are learning. I do not agree with sugar coating the past and teaching the myths that we have all been taught. I think we need to wait until the students are older and can handle what really happened on Thanksgiving or how Christopher Columbus really was instead of teaching the wrong content at a young age.
I plan on moving to New York City and becoming a teacher there for my first few years. I think teaching and living in a big city instead of staying around here will give me more exposure to various cultures. My classroom is going to be more culturally diverse than most of my peers and I am going to learn a lot. I will have culturally responsive classroom and allow my students to be themselves. We will all learn about each other and it will be more than a tourist model because these students will actually know what they are presenting and live it everyday. I am excited to expand my cultural knapsack in New York City and I know it will be a change from here and it is exactly what I want.
Integrating social studies is the best way to teach it more. We’ve learned about various literature books that can be used to teach social studies. Literature is the best and easy way to integrate. We can also use block city to touch on various subjects. There are so many websites we have discovered that gives us ways to teach social studies in an active environment and make it fun. Most students are used to the textbook way of social studies but I plan on changing up the routine. I want to make social studies a favorite subject of my students and do it by “doing history”

FQR

The fact, question, response activity we did in class can really help benefit a students understanding of content articles or textbook readings. This activity will teach the students not to just read through without comprehending what they are reading. If they take the time to think about what they are reading, comprehension will improve.

Fact or Fiction?

Throughout this course, I've learned not all things we were taught as children are accurate. I do not understand why we were lied to!?!? I guess we do not want to remember the bad things our country did but I feel like it is important to know all the facts, even the bad ones. Christopher Columbus is idealized as the founder of America and a great explorer but we learned that this is not the case. If younger students are too young to learn the truth about the mean things, why require to teach them? We need to wait until the students are mature enough to hear the truth and not fill their minds with lies and sugar coated stories.

Living History

The living history assignment was a blast! Everyone did so good on their costumes and information about their person. I think this would be a great activity to do with my class because its a fun and different way to learn about people in history. We are so used to reading out of a book when it comes to social studies but it does not have to be like this. I learned a lot during our living history museum and will definitely use it in my future classroom!

Book Talks

I enjoyed listening to everyone's book talks. It was good to open my eyes to books dealing with social studies because reading in the classroom is the focal point of curriculum. Being able to tie in other subjects to reading is important and essential in the classroom. The days go by so quickly and social studies can sometimes be left out and forgot about. Using literature to get social studies in the classroom is a great idea and doing these book talks we've learned about a variety of books that can be used in our future classroom.

Mt. Everest

I thought everything we discussed about Mt. Everest was interesting. I never knew all the factors that go into preparing a climb up the mountain. Its crazy! I like to consider myself an adventurous person but I don't think climbing Mt. Everest is for me, even though the view would be amazing. The people who take on the mountain are brave and determined, after paying all that money. I found this website that updates Mt. Everest news and talks about whats going on there.
http://www.everestnews.com/everest3.htm

GeoCaching

We learned about geocaching in class this week. I have done this a few times with some of my parents friends and thought it was a lot of fun! Its been about two years since last time I did it but being re-introduced to it in class this week made me remember about it. I think it would be a great thing to incorporate into the classroom. Kids would love to go on treasure hunts while learning longitude, latitude, directions, and reading maps. Geocaching is fun for everyone but I would have never thought about bringing it into the classroom. This was a fun activity and I will remember it when I am teaching longitude and latitude.

Teaching Geography

http://www.learner.org/workshops/geography/wkp3acti.html

I found this website that has various activities teachers can use when teaching geography.

Kids love to sing songs. Here is a link I found with numerous songs about geography.

http://www.songsforteaching.com/geographysongs.htm

Learning Social Studies

Learning social studies can be a process of getting drilled with facts and memorizing dates or can be taught in an involved interactive environment. I think it is important to involve students in any lesson, especially with social studies. The classroom is how we as teachers make it and we can make any lesson come alive for our students. The way we are learning about social studies in Dr. Meier's class is the way I believe the best way to teach it is. To be involved and experience the feeling the colonist had during the taxation process is a way to actually remember what happened in our history. Reading from a text book enhances memory until the test is over but doing actual activities and being interactive will keep the lesson in your mind longer.

Finding my Critical Voice

Finding your critical voice is important for a teacher. There will be times when we will be challenged by people who will think they know whats best in which we agree. We have to decide if we want to fight for what we know is right or sit back and let other people win. When I ask myself if I have established my own critical voice, I would have to say no. I hope to establish my voice when I get in my classroom and experience first hand situations where I will need to use my voice. I feel like I can not determine if I will follow the state mandates and do what the administration tells me or speak out against them until I am in the classroom and a part of the system.

Little Black Ants

The Little Black Ants story we were assigned to read was insightful. It really shows you how much kids want to learn and how interested they are in learning. I liked how the teacher took advantage of their peeked interest and turned the situation into a long term lesson. When students get into something we need to keep questioning them and keep finding out new information for them. This ant situation turned into learning about all different religions and cultures and it was all at the will of the students.