Why Study Social Studies?

Schools are under an intense amount of pressure, both internal and external, to produce competent, productive members of society. This is a time of high-stakes testing where every child must meet preset criteria to be recognized as successful, and every teacher is working frantically to make this happen. Students are being pressured by teachers who are being pressured by principals who are being pressured by superintendents who are being pressured by school boards who are being pressured by constituents to not be left behind by the educational process. The focus in many classrooms is placed on learning reading, mathematics, and science, however, not social studies. Ironically, it is social studies, or, to be more specific, history, that caused all of this pressure in the first place.

President Harry Truman, in 1946, established a commission to look into the state of the nation’s educational system. It was the first time such an undertaking was done by a president. “Higher Education for American Democracy (Higher Education for American Democracy, 2006), also called the “Truman Report,” was a six-volume tome focusing on the need for the country to establish postsecondary educational edifices. These schools were called “community colleges” by the commission and were meant to be free for anyone who would benefit by attending. Next came President Eisenhower’s “Committee on Education Beyond the High School” (President's Committee on Education Beyond the High School, 2006) in 1956. Again, the President was advised to place funding and effort into postsecondary educational initiatives.

However, while the federal government was studying ways to improve education, a man named John Dewey was actually improving education. A progressive, Dewey maintained that the best way for students to actually learn was by doing, constructing, if you will, their learning. Critics felt that Dewey’s ideals went too far away from the more basic, or traditional, role of public education: orating information. But, the fifties would soon give way to the more radical sixties. A new President was in the White House; a younger, freer thinking President. The nineteen sixties would, in many ways, validate Dewey and usher in an entire new way of looking at public education. Americans were about to be beaten into space by the Russians, and American students were going to be challenged to win the moon race, not for themselves, but for their country.

The Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. This embarrassed the United States. They were just beaten into outer space by their staunchest Cold War foe. The public needed a scapegoat and public education was right there to take the fall. In actuality, the post-World War II baby-boom had inundated the American public school system. It was literally bogged down with too many students and not enough facilities or educators. President John F. Kennedy went to Congress and asked for $2.3 billion in aid for elementary and secondary public schools (O'Brien, 2005). In addition, the ripples of the Sputnik fiasco were being felt in curriculum changes in public classrooms. “New math” was a term given to radically new teaching concepts in mathematics and science were traditional mathematical topics were forgone in place of different number bases, set theory, and various algebraic practices. This movement upset parents who felt they could no longer assist their children with their homework and teachers who recognized that this was simply too far from the ordinary for students to comprehend.

“A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform” (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), commissioned by President Ronald Reagan, reported that American schools were failing. The report called for establishing a way to assess learning and teaching in all schools, public and private, and at all levels, elementary through postsecondary. The report itself was ominous in tone and set forth the notion that American students were behind the rest of the world in reading, math, and science. It is this document that the genesis for standards-based education begins.

Presidents Clinton and H. W. Bush have standards-based educational initiative reports to their credit. The bipartisan “Goals 2000: Educate America Act” (H.R. 1804 Goals 2000: Educate America Act, 1994) signed by President Clinton was an eight-point “framework” for meeting national educational goals. With the phrase “improving the quality of learning and teaching in the classroom,” “Goals 2000” tasked states to design standards for all students at all grade levels. Improving the “Goals 2000” legislation was President George H. W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind Act” (PL 107-110, 2002) institutionalizes standards-based education into the American public school system. The Act puts forth concrete, measureable goals schools must reach in order to receive federal funds. Standards are to be set by states, but measured by this Act.

Why teach social studies? American public schools were founded on the ideals that students need to be prepared to participate in the republic that is America. While math and science have become the primary focal points in public education, knowing how the country came to be where it is today is a vital part of instilling the teachings of the past on the leaders of the future.

References
H.R. 1804 Goals 2000: Educate America Act. (1994, January 25). Retrieved October 8, 2009, from http://www.ed.gov/legislation/GOALS2000/TheAct/index.html

Higher Education for American Democracy. (2006). Retrieved October 8, 2009, from enotes.com: http://www.enotes.com/1940-education-american-decades-ps/higher-education-american-democracy-vol

National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983, April). A Nation At Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform. Retrieved October 8, 2009, from http://www.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/index.html

O'Brien, M. (2005). John F. Kennedy: a biography. New York: St. Martin's Press.

PL 107-110. (2002, January 8). Retrieved October 8, 2009, from http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/107-110.pdf

President's Committee on Education Beyond the High School. (2006). Retrieved October 8, 2009, from enotes.com: http://www.enotes.com/1950-education-american-decades/presidents-committee-education-beyond-high-school

Connecting to Students

When I began my journey into education, I did so by accident. I was enrolled in college to be a computer programmer. I loved video games and wanted to make them myself one day. After a few courses, and realizing the entire scope of the math involved, I dropped out of school. I was then on my way to being a manager of a sporting goods chain at the local mall!

Let me set the stage of my school years. From kindergarten through 5th grade I was a straight A student. School came very easy for me. In the first half of my sixth grade year my parents divorced. It affected me more so than anyone could not tell at the time. They year was 1986.

I left the only school district I had ever known, a very rural place where most everyone knew one another, and went to a drastically different urban setting where cliques were the way of life, no one knew anyone out of their own class, and no one liked outsiders.

I scraped my way through middle school with relatively few friends. I never dated. I was overweight and standoffish. I stopped caring about grades. I had found a new passion – Mario! I made the decision that school was second to my new Nintendo Entertainment System! And Super Mario Bros. ruled!

I entered my ninth grade year being a solid C student. For English that semester I had a very attractive teacher whom I will call Joyce. She was very popular. She maintained her popularity by being a cheerleading coach at the school. She was fit, young, and pretty. The girls loved her because she was one of “them” and the boys loved her because hormones were in overdrive and they all had a target of lust.

The assignment was to read The Hound of the Baskervilles and give an oral report. I never took the book home. We read in class a few times, but most of the reading was to be done at home. When it came my time to report, I told her I wanted to pass and just take my F. I wasn’t the only one in the class to do this, so it came as a surprise to me that she reacted as she did. When the class was over she had a student collect all of the books. The bell rings. We stand to leave. She says, “Robert.” I turned around. I was hit in the right shoulder with a hardbound copy of the novel I had not read. “You will have this completed by Monday morning. So you understand?” The class laughed because a) I had just gotten pegged in the right shoulder by a novel and b) a teacher threw a book at a kid. This was 1988.

I read that book that Friday night. It took maybe three to four hours, but I did it in one sitting. I loved it! The next day I went to the mall and bought a collection of Sherlock Holmes novels and read them all. I returned to school and gave my report. I made a B because she said it was late.

That episode did not change my viewpoint of school. I still hated it. But, I did learn that just because students pigeonhole themselves into cliques did not mean teachers did as well. What it showed me was that teachers, really good ones, find out what makes the biggest difference to the greatest number of students, and they appeal to those students on their individual levels. She just saw me for what I was – lazy! She got my attention, and I did the assignment. For that, I say “Thank you, Ms. Joyce. I loved you. In more ways than you will ever know.”

The Education of South Carolina Revitalization Begins Here

The Education of South Carolina Revitalization Begins Here