March 2019 archive
I read an interesting article yesterday about fact-checking. The article by Sam Wineberg (2015) entitled Why Historical Thinking is Not about History reiterated a point we need to drive home to our students, information needs to be verified — this is especially true about information found on the internet.
Wineberg talks about a Virginia textbook author who included unverified information from the internet in her 4thgrade Virginia history textbook. He also mentions a group of California teachers who inadvertently convinced some students that the Holocaust was ‘propaganda’ and a ‘hoax’ by providing the students comparative information retrieved from the internet as a sole source.
As Wienberg says, “The Internet has obliterated authority” (p. 14) and everyone and anyone can fall victim to easy information. Easy information, which is free floating, a top Google search result, not cited, etc. is easy to grab, absorb, and retell as fact. But we need to be careful about the redistribution of internet information and teach our students to examine sources critically.
To this point, Wienberg (2015) speaks of the need to train everyone to think like a historian in order to avoid such conundrums of information overload in the digital age. We can do this by equipping students with the skills to think like historians. By having students investigate primary sources, dig deep into the origins of information, and act with civic intelligence we will help students filter out the noise and focus on true and valid information.
A dense social studies education both implicitly and explicitly provides this foundational dexterity. This digital citizenship will help students through the informed decision-making process and perhaps even take the confusion (and argument) out of sifting through the copious amounts of information found on the internet.
In the end, training students to think like a historian will train them to make decisions through the lens of critical examination — for all information presented throughout their lives. From reading the newspaper and social media posts to making decisions regarding finances and career; when a student is able to ferret out accurate information they are able to make informed decisions. It is our job as educators to teach students the application of skills to be successful in life’s endeavors.
As the nation has evolved and industrialized, the need for a social studies education remains critical. The original design of promoting civic competence is still foundational; however, this multidisciplinary field interweaves history, political science, economics, and geography to create a unique platform for integrated study.
The discipline takes a more holistic view today than ever before as social studies today concerns itself with academic rigor, data collection, analysis of facts, the collaboration of thought, and strong decision-making and problem-solving skills in addition to its historical goals. However, to keep students engaged in social studies as a discipline, maintaining traditional pedagogical survey approaches may not be the best option.
The emergence of the inquiry method has been significant in the ever-evolving understanding of ‘social studies’ because human inquiries, general arguments, holistic assumptions, and individual points of view are at the heart of what makes social studies a profound and rewarding scholarship.
Simply regurgitating facts is not studying social studies; it is memorizing facts which will soon be forgotten. This type of study is akin to the “attic” philosophy, which postulates that memorization is like storing information in one’s brain in the same way one may store furniture in an attic. Indeed, this may not be the best approach when seeking to create a historical thinking framework.
However, when students learn through the lens of various inquiries, such as visual inquiry, critical inquiry, and moral inquiry, historical thinking becomes more relevant, more applicable, and converts to process rather than function.
Inquiry leads students through discussion. Teachers don’t act as an authority on the topic but allow the relevant questions to become opportunities for students and teachers to do history themselves, to encounter the past in all its messy, uncertain, and elusive wonder.
Although it is realistic to assume that all students won’t become historians and that all students will not necessarily reach the level of trained historical thinking with which professional historians work their craft, students need to find ways to execute the basic steps of inquiry which develop a historical mindedness.
Specifically, by learning cognitive habits, such as questioning, connecting, sourcing, making inferences, considering alternate perspectives, and recognizing limits to personal knowledge, students create habits students to carry with them not only to other classes but into the workplace.
Further, such cognitive habits will ideally become invaluable to students as they navigate the constant bombardment of information. Developing these skills will aid students in navigating the shoals of unreliable/solid, false/true, dependable, and rickety information which floods society every day. When a student has a substantial social studies education, steeped in inquiry they are more prepared for sifting the wheat from the chaff.
Businesswoman holding earth front of blackboard
The desire for an educated populous began in America before the nation was officially born. As an American colony, Boston Massachusetts would be the first to offer a publicly supported school. In 1635 The Boston Latin School was opened with the primary objective of college preparation for young boys.
In 1647 the Massachusetts Bay Colony General Court made declarations for public schools throughout the colony for the primary purpose of ensuring Puritan children could read the bible as well as educating virtues of family, religion, and community.
Over the last 383 years, education has evolved from the desire for religious literacy to a public system designed to educate the masses in a variety of subjects and for a variety of purposes. However, the core of a social studies education has ebbed and flowed with the needs of the nation.
From a discipline crafted to ensure a fledgling nation survived to a discipline sharpened to create nationalism in a nation torn apart by civil war, social studies has refined its discipline to practice evaluation, analysis, and application of contemporary conditions that shape not just the nation but the world.
As society becomes more complex, the need to integrate multiple perspectives, from multiple fields is necessary. In keeping with the complexity of society, social studies as a discipline will too become more complex. Since no single subject can provide an answer to the multifaceted issues facing a 21stcentury populous, social studies offer a holistic way to prepare students to view societal issues from an informed viewpoint.
A unique value found in an informed viewpoint is in the practice of historical empathy. Social studies provides the ability to clarify personal beliefs and assertions, and become a learned decision maker in not only matters of democracy but in matters of a democratic world. Social studies offers the unique perspective and essential responsibility of thinking in terms of the human experience. The discipline of social studies will continue to evolve in step with the nation as We The People continue to unpack what it means to be a civic-minded citizen, a steward of the nation, and a student of human experience. After all, the study of social studies is the study of being human.
And students like the study of being human. When surveyed, students are in favor of a social studies education and students see far-reaching benefits of a social studies education. Benefits which extend past the content area and surface in transferable skills and abilities; such as the ability to form and support opinions, evaluate concepts and ideas, develop critical thinking skills, strengthen reading comprehension, and unearth the true role(s) of an American citizen. However, without social studies, without examining the world through the lens of evidence-based discovery, a student ultimately begins to believe a Google search result is bond.
I can think of no subject area taught which does not have its roots in the broad foundation of the social studies discipline. To have a social studies education is to have a holistic human education cemented into the skill set(s) most desired in the workplace. Success is not measured in singularity, and I can think of no better multidisciplinary education to give to a student than a social studies education.
The promotion of civic aptitude and the installation of socially acceptable values as core features of social studies was vital to the experimental Republic in creating an active citizenry and has remained vital to continue that strong citizenry.
In my last post Reflections on Classroom Management: Emotional Consistency and Classroom Management – Part I, I reflected on the disruptive behavior in Ms. S’s class and how a self-inventory regarding emotional consistency may be helpful to Ms. S in turning around the classroom culture.
In this second post Reflections on Classroom Management: Refusal in the Classroom – Part II, I reflect on the practice of meeting student’s where they are and understanding refusal.
I begin every reflection concerning behavior with the same question “What is this student trying to communicate through this behavior?” I believe all behavior is a form of communication and decoding the communication of behavior is important.
The second scenario I reflected on concerned Mr. P. and his story about “refusal.”
Mr. P is a physical education teacher and he is concerned about five students in one of his physical education class who refuse to dress out. Despite several consequences:
- Taking points away from their averages,
- Contacting parents,
- Sending them to a study hall classroom instead of gym class; and,
- Having the “refusal” students ‘run laps’ in their regular school dress.
the students continue not dressing out. While the majority of the students are participating appropriately, these five “refusers” remain on the sidelines of the activity teasing and tormenting each other as well as others.
When groups of students refuse to follow directions provided by the teacher it can be distressing. Somewhere between an entire class and a single student, there are the small groups of students who, when band together, create an undeniable disruption in the learning environment. When the entire class is not at issue, strategies to effectively manage disruptive behavior may need to be broken down.
To change the behavior and culture of the disruptive five “refusers,” Mr. P may take certain steps, such as:
- Explaining to the five “refusers” exactly what is expected of them when they are asked to dress out,
- Work on building positive relationships with the refusal group as a whole and perhaps the most influential student of the refusal group
- Work on building positive relationships with individual members of the refusal group,
- Provide the five “refusers” with a choice of activity for gym to promote gym buy-in and encourage them to dress out for something they want to do versus something they have to do,
- Verbalize consequences for behaviors which are not appropriate to force the students to share responsibility among themselves for “refusal” behaviors; and,
- Specifically reinforcing the progress and effort individually for each of the five “refusers” as well as the five “refusers” as a group will help cement a successful behavior and attitude change.
Mr. P may also benefit by proving these particular students with a challenge. Providing a challenge or healthy competition for these five “refusers”, may entice these students to participate through the innate drive of competition.
While this strategy is similar to allowing the students to choose their own activities, healthy competition creates an activity not only for the five “refusers” but for the rest of the students as well — possibly creating whole class gym buy-in. Whether these five “refusers” compete against each other or the whole class, creating something that is different from the usual gym class will allow the five “refusers” to channel the negative energy of refusal positively.
