The Aspects of Teaching Social Studies in the Classroom

The article highlights about the teaching history that points out, 'Time spent teaching social studies has declined in the last two decades, particularly since the 2001 passage of No Child Left Behind, which favored a focus on math, reading, and accountability as a way of addressing the country's growing achievement gap between rich and poor children,' according to Gonser. He mentioned that focus on educators from Social Studies has been declined, while on the other hand focused on other subjects has been increased. Social Studies in the

Elementary Classroom: Helping Students Make Sense of Their World by Lauren Clark and Angela Hooser have collected useful information for teachers to students to examine how students counter the important discussion and activities in the Social Studies class which would help them to introduce to the World. As Ms. Clark interested in Social Studies subject to her life, and as she becomes older her passion for the subject increased. But unfortunately, if we examine the current education system, I do not see the importance of the subject. In this article, Ms. Clark gathered formative data, created a plan for ongoing data, and lastly, she engaged in summative data collection and analysis.

Clark's first step to collecting formative data was executed by gaining insight into her fellow educators' perspective on social studies. She discussed elementary school teachers that they are not comfortable teaching because they are afraid of exposure or lack of knowledge. For example, 'Teachers feel uncomfortable with content and skills that were inadequately addressed in their schooling or perhaps never developed any interest in the subject'. This is the reason why students and educators are bounded in a vicious relation to Social Studies because the system did not draw attention to teachers about the importance of Social Studies. Other experiences of educators about Social Studies and how they feel about the subject. Clark learned that 'across the responses was the unspoken rule that while social studies is important; it is acceptable in today's classroom to overlook its importance in favor of math and reading'. Most older educators did not stress enough the importance of Social Studies because they did Mathematics, Science, and Reading because they failed to stress the importance of social studies as they did the math, science, and reading. Overall, I would like to emphasize that most educators are responsible for students not just excelling, enjoying, or learning in social studies as much as they are in other subjects. After getting other educator's perspectives on teaching social studies, Clark looked towards her students for more answers.

To get a better understanding of teaching social studies, Clark also sought her student's perspective by giving them interest surveys. After collecting the data, Clark and her collaborating teacher dedicated two days a week to creating meaningful social studies activities. These activities consist of reading, writing, arts and crafts, group work, etc. in an attempt to make the class more engaging and somewhat similar to teaching styles found in other subjects. Her goal was to make sure all of her lessons addressed 'how and if lessons were meaningful and considering how and if lessons were engaging'. By doing this Clark is making an effort to not only make the class more engaging but also to make sure that the students are able to take this lesson and use it to make sense of the world.

After collecting important facts about the study, Clark encountered some new findings. For instance, planning for meaningful lessons expanded her use of resources. Using resources beyond the school curriculum is what caught her student's interest in which Clark says, ' One of the most important things that I have learned to do was to incorporate my student's interests'. The performance of the student is based on the interest of students and their engaging duration which leads students to learn something new. Overall, Clark came out with a new approach to teach Social Studies which makes Social Studies equally engageable and meaning as other subjects.

In conclusion, I viewed social studies and teaching in general differently. Initially, I did not understand the importance of social studies or why it was even taught in schools, but now I believe social studies are vital in making sense of the world. These articles are very important to highlight the importance of Social Studies which show the students and educators that little bit of effort can make a difference. I have chosen these two articles because it provided readers different views about learning activities that educators can apply to get the best result possible for Social Studies subject These articles brought awareness for students and educators offering new methods would be beneficial for students. These articles help readers to understand the importance of the subject but also highlighted Social Studies was overlooked and not given importance. For example, readers learn that educators feel uncomfortable teaching the subject because they don't feel like it was adequately addressed when they were in school and educators are afraid that their lack of knowledge would be exposed. Readers also learn that students perform better when they create lesson plans that are based on their interests. What I love most about this article is that Clark went the extra mile to make her class engaging and meaningful by dedicating more time to her lessons and trying a new approach to teaching social studies in which she ultimately received positive results. After reading this article I will use everything she taught me in my future classroom. For instance, incorporating my student's interests, reading aloud to the class, creating group activities, etc. Overall, this article highlights the importance of social studies, explains why the subject is overlooked and offers ways to make teaching social studies more engaging and meaningful.

Work Cited

1. Clark, Lauren, and Angela Hooser. “Social Studies in the Elementary Classroom: Helping Students Make Sense of Their World.” Journal of Practitioner Research, vol. 3, no. 1, July 2018, doi:10.5038/2379-9951.3.1.1069.
2. Gonser, Sarah. “How Social Studies Can Help Young Students Make Sense of the World.” Chalkbeat, 12 July 2018, chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2018/07/12/how-social-studies-can-help-young-students-make-sense-of-the-world/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2020.