Page 191 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

CHAPTER 7 How Can I Teach the Other Social Sciences Powerfully? 163
particular individuals or groups. Information about how the core democratic values can be defined and taught at different grade levels (including recommendations for correlated children’s literature selections) can be found at the website of the Michigan Department of Education. For other ideas about teaching about Constitution Day, see constitutioncenter. org/ncc_progs_constitution_day.aspx
Some elementary teachers, especially primary teachers, also shy away from teaching about government because they believe their students are not interested in or ready for instruction in the topic. It is true that most elementary students will not respond well to macro aspects of the topic or to some of the drier traditional content, such as a lesson on how a bill becomes a law. However, even young children are interested in issues of fair- ness and justice (as can be seen when they learn about slavery or past restrictions on women’s rights). We also have found them to be responsive to lessons on government that emphasize basic reasons for and functions of government (rather than abstract political science concepts or details of governmental procedures).
Children can understand that people need governments to provide essentials that are too big, complicated, or expensive for them to provide for themselves, such as keeping us safe (military, police, fire, hospitals) and enabling us to function in the modern world (schools, roads, traffic regulation). They also are interested to learn other basic ideas about government: governments collect taxes to pay for their activities; there is not always consensus on what government should be doing, which is why we have political parties and elections; and our country vests power in the people and elects its leaders, but other countries are ruled by monarchs who inherit the throne or by despots who forcibly seize power and maintain it through repression.
Children’s Knowledge and Thinking about Government
More is known about children’s thinking about government than about other major social studies topics. Earlier studies indicated that young children tend to depict a benev- olent world in which political leaders are wise, caring, and attentive to the needs of everyone. American children’s early political thinking is focused on the president, whom they depict as making laws and running the country by doing everything from managing the military and world affairs to providing individual assistance to people who telephone or visit the White House. They usually know little or nothing about Congress, the Supreme Court, federal departments and bureaucracies, or parallel governmental struc- tures at the state and local level. Instead, they think of government as the actions of the president (and to a much lesser extent, the governor or the mayor), assisted by “helpers” who come to bring up issues or problems, receive decisions, and then carry out orders.
Because they think of government as benevolent and put their trust in it, children have difficulty conceiving or approving of pressure groups, parties, conflict, and so on. They are somewhat aware that big corporations influence government, but they usually do not think that rich people have any more influence than average people. They idealize elec- tions, believing that candidates should not say unkind things about one another, that the loser should support the winner, and that the winner should be gracious and forgiving.
Although they occasionally refer to something quite specific (e.g., helping a person get a job), children’s depictions of the president’s actions are usually vague and generic. Initially they talk about the president signing papers, making speeches, or running meet- ings, and later they add functions such as making laws, running the country, or solving problems. Although their thinking about governmental leaders focuses on the president much more than the governor or mayor, their thinking about governmental functions is much more local (they talk about providing roads, schools, police and emergency services, and so on). They sometimes confuse the public and private sectors, as in think- ing that all utility companies and television stations are part of the government or in not
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.