Social Education May/June 2019
Social Education May/June 2019
Volume:83
Num:3
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Editor's Notebook
The contributors to this issue of Social Education offer rich ideas for the creative teaching of social studies through the arts and literature and some noteworthy articles on topics ranging from inquiry-based learning to a first-hand account of the dilemmas of a history textbook author. This issue also presents the most recent National Council for the Social Studies position statements that have been approved by the NCSS Board of Directors. One addresses the current challenges of “Youth, Social Media, and Digital Civic Engagement,” and the second deals with the important subject of “Early Childhood in the Social Studies Context.”
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Exploring Families through Contemporary Visual Art
An arts-based approach to secondary social studies can promote active learning, develop critical thinking skills, and advance the study of social institutions.
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Asking Students to Re-Imagine a “Living Newspaper” Play with Playbills from the Federal Theatre Project
An examination of the featured playbills from a 1938 Federal Theatre Project production can launch an engaging lesson on the Great Depression and the Works Progress Administration.
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The White Gunman, The Anti-Semitic Automaker, and Other Dilemmas of a History Textbook Author
A textbook author reflects on the ethical and ideological choices she made in her quest to create a history book that would be relevant to demographically diverse high school students.
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The Chicago Eight Conspiracy Trial at Fifty: Blind Justice in Polarized Times
Studying the landmark 1969 Chicago Eight conspiracy trial can propel an engaging debate on the balance between political dissent and law and order.
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Wide Awake in the World with the 2019 Notable Books
Two noteworthy books can help young learners grapple with significant societal issues such as poverty and homelessness and can help teachers introduce students to the vocabulary of civic action.
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The Carter G. Woodson Book Awards, 2019
This year’s award winners include books that spotlight African American trailblazers (Sojourner Truth), barrier breakers (the all-black Attucks high school basketball team), and a book created in collaboration with contemporary teenage immigrants.
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A Mile in Another’s Shoes: A Thematic Approach to Ethnic Studies
High school ethnic studies courses that address the perspectives and experiences of people of color are increasingly in demand. The author describes the thematic, inquiry-based approach she developed that reflects her school’s diversity.
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Engaging Social Studies Educators: Professional Development on Inquiry
Having a meaningful plan for professional development on inquiry-based learning will translate into richer instruction for students.
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Youth, Social Media and Digital Civic Engagement
The use of social media saturates the everyday lives of young people, offering complex, rich challenges and opportunities for cultivating their skills with and disposition toward online participatory politics in “a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world ” (National Council for the Social Studies). While attempts to define digital civic engagement are still in a formative stage (Kligler-Vilenchik & Thorson, 2016), National Council for the Social Studies suggests drawing upon youth’s informal personal use of social media and seeking to transfer these experiences into formal civic and academic settings so as to enable students to become civically engaged in digital spaces. The following are reasons to do so, supported with recommendations on ways to aid in that transformation, and with resources to enable us as social studies educators to turn those recommendations into civic realities.
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Early Childhood in the Social Studies Context
As young children engage in their play and daily activities, they show a natural interest in the world around them. Early childhood educators may capitalize on these interests and carefully plan a variety of experiences with social studies in mind, cultivating and extending young children’s diverse skills and abilities to form and voice opinions, identify and solve problems, negotiate roles, perceive diversity and inequality, and recognize the consequences of their decisions and behaviors on others. Social studies is a vital part of the early childhood curriculum, since children’s formative experiences shape their attitudes as “citizens of their classroom, their schools, and of the larger community” (Mardell, 2011).
Given the importance of early years educators in creating learning environments and experiences that foster young children’s skills as active citizens committed to inclusion and equity, the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) affirms pedagogic practices in the early years that support young children’s progression of social studies learning in early childhood settings.
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NCSS Notebook
2018 NCSS House of Delegates Resolutions
The House of Delegates (HOD) provides a forum for the general membership of NCSS, as represented by state councils, communities, and associated groups, to bring ideas, principles, beliefs, and actions regarding social studies education to the attention of the NCSS Board of Directors. Resolutions are the framework through which the NCSS membership at-large makes recommendations to the Board. Published here are the resolutions approved by the NCSS Board of Directors at its Winter 2019.
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Notable Social Studies Trade Books, 2019
The National Council for the Social Studies and the Children’s Book Council are pleased to present this year’s selection of outstanding books for teaching primary, intermediate, and high school social studies.