Page 167 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

CHAPTER 6 How Can I Teach Geography and Anthropology Powerfully? 139
studying past or present societies and cultures, it is helpful to organize content around cultural universals and related dimensions that facilitate comparison and contrast. For example, Hanna, Sabaroff, Davies, and Farrar (1966) presented detailed suggestions about ways to organize such studies around nine basic human activities:
1. Protecting and conserving life and resources
2. Producing, exchanging, and consuming goods and services 3. Transporting goods and people
4. Communicating facts, ideas, and feelings
5. Providing education
6. Providing recreation
7. Organizing and governing
8. Expressing aesthetic and spiritual impulses
9. Creating new tools, technology, and institutions
Similarly, Fraenkel (1980) suggested that systematic study and comparison of past or present societies can be organized around the following questions:
1. Who were the people being studied?
2. When did they live?
3. Where did they live?
4. What did they leave behind that tell us something about them?
5. What kinds of work did they do and where did they do it?
6. What did they produce or create?
7. What did they do for recreation?
8. What family patterns did they develop?
9. How did they educate their young?
10. How did they govern and control their society?
11. What customs and beliefs did they hold?
12. What events, individuals or ideas are they especially known for, and how did these
affect their lives?
13. What problems did they have?
14. How did they try to deal with these problems?
Certain key ideas appear repeatedly in sources of advice on how to teach elementary students about societies and cultures. One is the importance of focusing on cultural uni- versals because these are fundamental categories of the human condition that children can understand based on their own prior experiences. A second is the value of compari- son and contrast across well-chosen examples that illustrate and promote understanding of the variation to be found on key dimensions. A third is the importance of explaining cultural adaptations within the context of their time and place to help students empathize with the people involved and begin to see things from their point of view (as opposed to focusing on the exotic in ways that make the people seem stupid or crazy).
For example, we recommend studying Native Americans within historical and geo- graphical contexts, focusing on a few well-selected tribes in sufficient depth to allow stu- dents to develop some appreciation of the similarities and differences in their cultures. We might include an Eastern Woodlands tribe, a Plains tribe, a Southwestern Pueblo tribe, a Pacific Northwest tribe, and (if not already included) a tribe that lived (or better yet, still does live) in your local area. Key ideas to develop might include the following:
1. Native Americans are believed to have crossed from Asia on a land bridge now beneath the Bering Strait, then gradually spread through North and South America.
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