Page 109 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

CHAPTER 4 What Social Studies Planning Tools Are Available? 81
The aims that we profess for social studies often are invisible within our practices. “Aims talk is not a luxury in which only outside ‘experts’ and ivory-tower academics—who have time on their hands—engage, but it is essential for thoughtful classroom teaching” (Thornton, 2005, p. 47). Our textbook in general and this chapter in particular are intended to stimulate conversations with colleagues and be used as you chart your course for social studies instruction. Our goal is that you will develop a vision for what social studies can be in your classroom, enact it accordingly, and do so in ways that make your aims and goals transparent to your students.
Planning as Goal-Oriented
Throughout our book, we emphasize that powerful teaching begins with clarifying goals and developing powerful ideas. Planning with these as a priority is an essential compo- nent in social studies teaching. You are responsible for selecting and designing social studies-based learning experiences that reflect your school’s curriculum and community learning goals. You also need to be able to respond to your students’ needs and interests as well as be ready to make the most of unanticipated learning opportunities that surface during instructional interactions. To do all this, you need to be prepared.
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the students and found out that they already had some background knowledge and were amazing questioners. Questions like, “Were there ever any slaves that were white? Or are they always black?” and “Why did white people not like the black people?” expanded my focus for the unit. By the end of my 10-lesson unit, the students had analyzed the economics of slavery and the unfortunately, long and painful history of slavery in our world. They had learned valuable research skills. They discovered the motivation that led slaves to embark on dangerous escapes through narratives, legends, songs, videos, and actual recordings of slave testimo- nies and most powerfully, experienced an online, interactive slave journey from slavery to freedom in the North. I have never seen students so engaged and emotional about a school topic—some were nearly beside themselves with anxiety and eagerness for freedom! When we came to a crucial decision about hiding out or running for our lives while slave dogs sniffed around our hiding place in the woods, I became a mere facilitator of a heated debate that encompassed all that we had learned in the unit.
While I am still by no means a social studies planning master, I am excited for the next unit I design. I have changed the way I see the subject; the textbook is simply a guide that will give me the topics I should be covering and keep me on the same page as the district, but it ends there. Then, it is up to the teacher to find exciting, powerful, and meaningful supplements to form the meat of the unit. While it is more work, it is worth it the minute you overhear a student stating to her peers during a group activity, “Can you believe what the esclavos had to live through? I could never survive if they sold mis padres and I had to be by myself in the woods trying to find the North. I am afraid of being alone en mi casa! Slavery can never be allowed again, even if rich people do need work done for them.”