Page 130 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

102 Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students
The K–12 social studies curriculum typically includes three years of American history and at least one year of world history, and most other social studies courses include significant historical strands. In elementary school, the primary grades typically include the holiday curriculum and units on the history of the students’ families and the local community and on Native American and pioneer life. Fourth grade studies of the state or region usually include historical material, and fifth grade studies include at least a semester and usually a full year devoted to study of U.S. history. Sixth grade studies usu- ally include historical material regarding the western hemisphere, the world, or ancient civilizations. We have provided a resource unit focusing on the American Revolution to illustrate a connected set of key ideas related to a specific time period as Appendix B. We have highlighted the powerful ideas critical to understanding the events and outcomes of the American Revolution.
Developments in Children’s History Knowledge
Early research on children’s history learning was heavily influenced by Jean Piaget’s ideas about developmental stages, and it produced some initially discouraging results. In fact, for a time some social studies educators questioned the feasibility of teaching history to elementary students on the grounds that these students have not yet achieved the levels of cognitive development needed to learn history with understanding. However, subse- quent debate and data collection and analysis led to the rejection of this argument. It is now generally accepted that elementary students can understand general chronological sequences (e.g., that land transportation developed from walking to horse-drawn carriages to engine-powered vehicles) even though they may be hazy about particular dates, and that they can understand age-appropriate representations of people and events from the past (especially narratives built around the goal-oriented activities of central characters with whom the students can identify) even though they might not be able to follow analytic treat- ments of abstract historical topics or themes (Barton, 1997; Barton & Levstik, 2004; Booth, 1993; Crabtree, 1989; Downey & Levstik, 1991; Thornton & Vukelich, 1988, Willig, 1990).
Barton and Levstik (1996) studied K–6 students’ understanding of historical time by showing them pictures from various periods in American history, asking them to place the pictures in order and explain their reasoning. They found that even the youngest students could distinguish “long ago” from “close to now,” explaining their judgments with reference to the relative modernity of the clothing, furniture, or objects shown in the pictures. Older students made increasingly differentiated temporal distinctions. Dates had little meaning for children before third grade; third and fourth graders understood their numerical basis; but only fifth and sixth graders typically connected particular dates with particular background knowledge.
Sansom (1987) noted that gradual advances occur in four key aspects of historical reasoning:
Causation. At first, children do not perceive any logic to historical causality—things happen without relationship to one another. The story “unfolds” but does not develop. Once children begin to realize that historical events have causes, they initially take a mechanistic view, thinking that events were the inevitable results of their preceding causal chains, and that they had to happen the way that they did. Later, children begin to understand that events have multiple causes that act in combination, that things could have turned out differently, that competing values of groups can cause conflict, that a location’s physical and cultural geography, political climate, and economic conditions can cause certain things to happen, and that we cannot know all of the causes of events.
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