Page 38 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

10 Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students
history up to the Civil War as well as immigration and citizenship. Third graders study ancient Rome and Byzantium, the Vikings, various Native American tribal groups, and the 13 English colonies prior to the American Revolution. You can learn more about the Core Knowledge Sequence at www.coreknowledge.org/. As a content base for social studies, we think the Core Knowledge Sequence has some potential for powerful social studies teaching and learning. However, we believe teachers need to be skilled at helping students connect the discrete pieces of factual knowledge by making clear the powerful ideas that connect them. We believe the study of cultural literacy has potential, but it is critical to build on children’s prior knowledge and experience when using it.
Cultural Universals Cultural universals are defined as basic human needs and social experiences found in all societies, past and present. If these topics are taught with an appropriate focus on powerful ideas, students will develop a basic set of connected understandings about how the social system works; how and why it got that way over time; how and why it varies across location and cultures and what all of it might mean for personal, social, and civic decision making. While Alleman and Brophy developed this curricular approach for the early grades it can be applied to many of the topics covered in the middle or upper elementary grades.
The cultural universals approach is based on the premise that children can under- stand and appreciate historical episodes described in narrative form, with emphasis on the motives and actions of key individuals, and that they can understand aspects of customs, culture, economics, and politics that focus on universal human experiences and on adaptation problems that are familiar to them and for which they have developed schemas or routines. It also “unveils the mysteries” that the social world presents (from the children’s perspective), helping them view the cultural practices under study as rational means of meeting needs and pursuing wants. For more information about the cultural universals as a curricular approach, see Excursions, a three-volume series of field-tested units aligned with NCSS themes (Alleman & Brophy, 2001, 2002, 2003b).
Learning in History and the Social Sciences Most elementary social studies con- tent expectations are organized by discipline: history and the core social science disciplines (anthropology, civics, economics, and geography). There are separate content expectations listed for each discipline for early grades, middle grades, and high school. This approach reflects a commitment to teaching the particular content and processes (skills) associated with each discipline. The purpose of this approach is not to make “mini-historians” (Levstik & Barton, 2010) or mini-economists, but to engage students in authentic tasks that adults do to make sense of the human condition (Newmann, Marks, & Gamoran, 1995). One feature of this approach is the potential it offers for rich, substantive learning of the unique knowledge and skills of each discipline.
In history, for example, it is important for students to examine primary sources and compare competing sources of evidence to draw well-founded tentative conclusions. In geography, students need opportunities to construct and analyze a variety of maps (physical and political) and to assess migration patterns for push-pull factors. In economics, students should experience first-hand that scarcity is the result of living in an environment with seemingly unlimited human needs and wants but having limited resources. In political science (civics), students should learn how people, in the past and present, have interpreted ideas in core documents, such as the U.S. Constitution, in fundamentally different and often conflicting ways.
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.