Putting the Social Back in Social Studies

In this blog post I am referring to an excerpt (from a book) that I read. To summarize, the author is advocating that teachers start teaching social studies in a way that entices students to be interactive. When social studies is taught, it is strictly fact recall and textbook heavy. Students believe they do not like the subject of social studies, but in fact, they do not like the way social studies is taught. While I was in school, I had a mixture of interactive learning and textbook learning. As most students, I got bored, confused, and upset with the textbook version of learning. I feel that I do not remember anything that I "learned" through a set of dates in a textbook. I do remember learning through activities, which is the way I think it should be taught. Students could gain a lot more from social studies if it was taught in an interactive way. I believe (all) people learn through doing and not from reading a textbook until our brains hurt. Textbook learning is beneficial for some people, and I am not saying that a textbook is not a helpful resource. I do believe that instruction should not be based solely on a textbook or worksheets. Students learn in a variety of ways, therefore, instruction should occur in a variety of ways.