Ayana's Site On Teaching and Learning!

My Band-Aid Guide

Ideally, in September, every new teacher should be given professional development and a resource kit for teaching social studies using the latest inquiry-based methods. Recent political events have underscored the need for all citizens to be able to understand history, geography, economics and government. However, in my experience, teachers in under-resourced schools often have little or no training and materials for teaching social studies, because their school’s limited funds are directed to reading and math instruction. Here are my thoughts as I plan for social studies instruction. Know that this method is just a “band-aid”. Ultimately, it is up to us to advocate for up-to-date, comprehensive social studies curricula for our students, in the hope that ultimately they will be leaders in creating a more socially just world.

What do I teach?

I need a rough plan for the rest of the year…
But I don’t know what kids at my grade are supposed to learn in social studies.
· Read the state standards and anything else you can find from your school district.
But the standards are so vague – I need to know exactly what to teach and how to teach it.
· Look around the classroom and ask other teachers and staff at your school.
But what if the other teachers are nearly as clueless and resourceless as I am?
· Work together to make a list of what topics you will teach to meet the standards.

How do I teach it?

OK, I know the what, but I still don’t know the how.
Get copies of units for each topic from:
· other teachers
· the teacher store or the library
· the web
· that one social studies textbook you found under a radiator
· teacher organizations that you’re a member of, like your union and your credentialing program.
· other curricula you have, i.e. perhaps your reading program has a unit which you can use for social studies.
· Scholastic News, Time for Kids, or some other kid magazine.
·  

Get an overview of the unit:

· What (one or two or) three things from this unit do I want the kids to remember for the rest of their lives? (These are your unit objectives.)
· How can I assess whether they learned those three things?
· Read the lessons in the unit.
·

How can I adapt the lessons to better fit with

· my unit objectives?
· my kids?
· my needs as a teacher?
· the materials I have or can get?
·  

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Prepare the first lesson(s):

· Gather materials.
· Think about management.
· Make copies of handouts.
· Make student packets – I like putting handouts into a packet; they’re easier to keep track of than individual sheets.
·
 

Teach!

· Try to model for your kids what you want them to do. A picture is worth a thousand words.
· Take some time during the unit to reflect on how it’s going. Post-its stuck in your lesson plans can be tremendously helpful for talking about the unit with other teachers, for you’re ready to plan your next unit, and for when you pull this unit out of the filing cabinet next year!
· Have fun! Social studies can be so exciting because at its heart it’s about the things that matter most.

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Links and Resources

updated 3/05

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/ My favorite site on teaching history, a wonderful resource hosted by the University of Houston. I really like their Do History guide at http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/do_history/index.cfm .

http://www.proteacher.com/090000.shtml Proteacher's social studies links.

http://go.hrw.com/atlas/norm_htm/world.htm A simplified world map from Holt.

http://www.maps.com/reference/ Maps.

http://www.netstate.com/states/index.html State by state info.

http://www.socialstudies.org/ National Council for the Social Studies. Good for general info.  Not as many unit plans as I was hoping for.

http://www.esrmetro.org/index.html Educators for Social Responsibility.

http://www.nationalcharterschools.org/resource_listing_detail.php?id=71 Using Inquiry to Teach Social Studies.

SocialStudiesVocabularyPreKto2.doc I compiled this from NY state standards documents.

And here are blank timelines that I've used during lessons.  The students fill them in as we go along.

HistoryTimelineBlankLarge.doc

HistoryTimelineBlankSmall.doc

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Kwanzaa

12/04

www.teach-nology.com/teachers/ lesson_plans/holidays/kwanza/

This looks like a good list of Kwanzaa lesson resources.

http://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/ Hear from Dr. Karenga himself!

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